I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been finding August to be rather topsy-turvy. We've had a lot of things going on around here which have drastically interfered in my ability to focus on writing. It's not helping me get the first blog book finished, that's for sure! But my birthday's coming in a few weeks and I'll be taking some time off for that, so I'm hoping to make use of at least a couple of those days. This will be the first year since the blog began that I'll be doing a post on my actual birthday (when I will once again be fortymumble years old); hopefully I'll have something special for the occasion. Or at least something amusing.
For today, I looked at my list of completed posts and realized that we haven't visited Luzerne County since April, so I thought it might be time to do just that. Let's take a ride up to Hazleton and visit the oldest Slovak Roman Catholic church this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
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| The marker stands in front of the church at 604 North Laurel Street |
My grasp of Slovak history is, I admit, pretty poor. The nation we know today as Slovakia was once part of Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic, and frankly the region has changed so many times in my lifetime alone that I haven't kept tabs on the whole thing. So please forgive me if I make any geography errors, and feel free to leave a comment correcting me if necessary.
I've mentioned before in my posts about Eckley Miners' Village and Saints Peter and Paul of Freeland that the coal industry attracted many 19th century immigrants to the northeastern parts of Pennsylvania. They settled in patch towns like Eckley and eked out a living for themselves and their families. As part of their settlements, they established houses of worship in their various denominations. Eastern European immigrants often had it particularly difficult, since they rarely spoke English, and more often than not found themselves ostracized from their neighbors as a result. In order to worship in their own languages and according to their own customs, they frequently had to travel several miles to get to church, often on foot no less.
As Brian Ardan points out in his book about the Slavic communities of the region, the church was roughly as important as family to the Slavs. Just like back in "the old country," it was the central unit of their lives, and even the poorest of parishioners found ways to contribute to their churches and help to maintain the buildings. They did run into one particular problem, though, which was difficult to overcome - finding qualified priests to lead them in worship. Putting together a church wasn't as hard as locating someone to minister to the flock. To that end, they often wrote back to "the old country" and requested that priests be sent to them.
The first Slovak Catholic priest who answered such a call was Father Ignatius Jaskovic, who came from Saris in modern-day Slovakia. (His name is spelled as Jascovich on the marker, but Jaskovic on the church website.) He arrived in New York City in October 1882, thus paving the way for other Slovak priests to do the same. On November 17th, he arrived in Hazleton, and was welcomed by the congregation of St. Gabriel's Church on Wyoming Street. There he celebrated the first Mass for Slovak Catholics the following day. Though he was grateful that the people of St. Gabriel's were willing to share their church building, Father Jaskovic recognized that the Slovaks needed a church of their own, and immediately began drafting the plans for one.
It took some time, but in 1884, the first rectory was completed. Bishop William O'Hara came to join the celebration when the foundation was laid on May 18, 1885 for the first St. Joseph's Church building. The cornerstone was placed on June 29th of the same year, and the first Mass was finally celebrated in the church on the Feast Day of St. Nicholas, December 6th. Church records note that the collection plate that day brought in $35, which was a princely sum in 1885 - it's the equivalent of roughly $1,100 in today's money.
Father Jaskovic remained with his friends at St. Joseph's for the church's first few years. He bade them farewell on April 9, 1890, traveling to the western side of the state, and later returned to Europe. He died in April 1909 in Jager, Hungary. He was succeeded at St. Joseph's by Father Joseph Kossalko, whose own return to Europe after two years with them left the congregation without a priest of its own, though kind assistance was once again rendered by the people of St. Gabriel's. Finally, in 1893, they received their third shepherd, Father Francis Prybil. He presided over the demolition and reconstruction of the church building (a new brick structure on the foundations of the first one) and the rectory.
During the pastorate of Father Matthew Jankola, the fifth priest to serve St. Joseph's, the church suffered a devastating setback. On March 10, 1905, the church building caught fire in the night and was destroyed. The congregation rallied, however, and began working on plans to replace the building. During that year they added a school to the church complex, and while the new fieldstone church was being constructed, Mass was held in the school's auditorium. Father Jankola is perhaps second only to Father Jaskovic in his importance to the history of the church; in addition all of this, he was the one who organized many of the church's programs and arranged for the purchase of land on North Church Street to establish a congregation cemetery. He also established the Order of the Sisters of Saints Cyril and Methodius, an order of nuns who took charge of running the St. Joseph's School. After his death in 1916, the school gymnasium was dedicated in his memory.
The school was expanded over time, and the church and rectory both refurbished and renovated. In 1963, they suffered another church fire which destroyed the edifice; though it was determined that the fire originated in the basement, the exact cause could not be ascertained. The rectory suffered smoke damage, but the four fire companies who answered the call were able to prevent the actual fire from spreading beyond the church itself, which sustained damage estimated at around a million dollars. A public drive was immediately begun to raise funds to rebuild. Additional properties were also purchased in order to increase the school and to build a new convent for the Sisters. The new church's altars were consecrated on March 19, 1966, the Feast of St. Joseph, and the main altar contains relics of Saints Digna, Castus, and Maria Goretti.
Over the ensuing decades, further alterations were made, including the enlarging of the marble Sanctuary, the installation of a marble Altar of Sacrifice, and many modernizations of the electrical wiring and painting. In 1993 they added an Allen Digital Computer Organ, made by the Allen Organ Company of Macungie. All of the changes have resulted in St. Joseph's being considered one of the most beautiful churches in the Hazleton area - and from what I could see just from the outside on my visit, I don't doubt this is true.
The St. Joseph's School continued operations under the guidance of the Sisters until 2005, when all of the Hazleton parochial schools were merged. The school was renamed Holy Family Academy, and has since been relocated to a different site. Following the merger, the Sisters were no longer in charge of the school's operations and were transferred to other branches of their order; the convent was eventually sold and became an assisted living facility, though the stained glass windows were removed from the convent chapel and installed at entrances of the church.
Today, the building is still known as St. Joseph's, though its full name is now Saints Cyril and Methodius Parish at the Church of Saint Joseph. This is because it has merged, along with the local churches of St. Ladislaus, Holy Trinity Slovak, and St. Stanislaus, into the Faithful of Saints Cyril and Methodius Parish. St. Joseph's is a parish of the Roman Catholic parish of the Diocese of Scranton, and as you might imagine, it's been a long time since they worshiped in a Slovak language. It's formally recognized as the oldest Slovak Catholic church in the western hemisphere, and in 2020 celebrated (well, as much as anyone could celebrate anything in 2020) the 125th anniversary of its congregation founding. Daily Masses are held at 8:00 a.m. Monday through Friday, 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, and 8:00 and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. These can also sometimes be viewed on the church's YouTube channel as well. They're rooted in the past, but reaching for the future.
Sources and Further Reading:
Official website of Sts. Cyril and Methodius Parish at the Church of St. Joseph
Ardan, Brian. Images of America: The Anthracite Coal Region's Slavic Community. Arcadia Publishing, 2009.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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