St. Adalbert's in Chicago

St. Adalbert
Church
St. Adalbert; Church
	Polish Cathedral
Groundbreaking	June 30, 1912
Completed	1914
Construction cost	$200,000
Closed	July 15, 2019
Specifications
Materials	Brick

St. Adalbert Church (

Chicago, Illinois

. St. Adalbert has served generations of Polish immigrants and their American-born children; at its peak, parish membership numbered 4,000 families with more than 2,000 children enrolled in the school. Today, the church is an anchor for the Mexican immigrants that have made the Pilsen area their home.

The church is named after St. Adalbert of Prague.

In June 2019, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that the church would permanently close on July 15, 2019.^[1]

History of Saint Adalbert Parish

St. Adalbert parish was founded in 1874 by the

Catholic community in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. By the time of the church's centennial celebration, the congregation had predominantly Mexican heritage, reflective of greater changes in the surrounding neighborhood. For many years the church held masses in both Polish and Spanish. A shrine of the Mexican patroness Our Lady of Guadalupe

is part of the church premises.

In 2016, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that St. Adalbert Church would be closed due to low mass attendance, changing demographics, decline in the overall number of priests, and over $3 million in repairs needed to maintain the church's crumbling buildings. The final mass at St. Adalbert was held on July 14, 2019, and the congregation has been combined with the nearby St. Paul Catholic Church.[1]

Church design and decoration

The church and adjoining rectory were designed by the prolific Chicago catholic church architect,

Henry J. Schlacks

. It was completed at an estimated cost of $200,000.

The interior is modeled after the papal basilica of

Polish Cathedral style' befitting the parish church of a largely Polish congregation. In this case, Schlacks seems to have taken the towers of the nineteenth-century St. Stephen's Basilica

in Budapest as his loose inspiration.

Entrance is through a shallow portico with eight massive grey-flecked, rose-colored polished granite columns, from there to pass through a narrow vestibule with four large recessed fonts in its back wall, and finally to enter the immense main body which has the most magnificent marble work to be found in any church in Chicago.

A stern large white-marble statue of the church's patron

Bolesław I

ransomed back Adalbert's body by paying its weight in gold.

The original balustered white-marble altar rail complements the white marble of the many-tiered

Our Lady and Saint Joseph respectively instead of the more customary statues. The original east transept marble shrine holding the Pietà

(once matched by a similar shrine in the west transept) is still intact.

The

Our Lady of Częstochowa when by the Virgin's intervention an army of 9,000 invading Swedes failed to take a monastery held by only 250 monks. The predominant muted orange-red tones of the mural are repeated in the present color of the ambulatory wall and also in the ceiling coffers and panels of the clerestory. Although these panels and coffers are painted in this solid color today, it is possible that they were originally intended for murals such as the large ones of St. Francis and St. Anthony

in the west transept and the others of various subjects that have been completed in the panels around the main lower body of the church.

The

St. Cecilia in the center. The aisle floors are a handsome inlay of sections of red, black, and gray terrazzo

.

Alterations and losses

Several rows of pews have been removed from the back, truncating Schlacks's long processional aisle. The floor where the pews were removed has been patched with vinyl tile that attempts to match the pattern and colors of the surrounding tan and black terrazzo floor.

The original nave chandeliers are gone.

The original

communion rail

is gone.

The west transept shrine has been truncated to accommodate a new baptistry.

A large polychrome rood (crucifix) which may have originally hung in the sanctuary has been placed in the remaining portion of the west transept shrine to which has been added a false back to bring the surface out to meet the back of the crucifix.

Church in architecture books

Sinkevitch, Alice (2004). The AIA Guide to Chicago. Harvest Books.
Schulze, Franz; Harrington, Kevin (2003). Chicago's Famous Buildings. University Of Chicago Press.
McNamara, Denis R. (2005). Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago. Liturgy Training Publications.
Chiat, Marylin (2004). The Spiritual Traveler: Chicago and Illinois: A Guide to Sacred Sites and Peaceful Places. HiddenSpring.
Lane, George A. (1982). Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage. Loyola Press.
Kantowicz, Edward R. (2007). The Archdiocese of Chicago: A Journey of Faith. Booklink.
Kociolek, Jacek (2002). Kościoły Polskie w Chicago {Polish Churches of Chicago} (in Polish). Ex Libris.

References

^ ^a ^b "Last Mass at St. Adalbert Parish in Pilsen set for July". 23 June 2019.

External links

[closing-1] "Last Mass at St. Adalbert Parish in Pilsen set for July". 23 June 2019.

[1]