Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church SeattleBSC-SEA-11OCT20b

The Church of the Blessed Sacrament is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

parish within the

Archdiocese of Seattle The Archdiocese of Seattle () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in western Washington State in the United States. The diocese was known as the Diocese of Nesqually from 1850 to 1907. The mother ch ...

serving

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

's University District. It is the only parish in the archdiocese to be owned and operated by the

Order of Preachers The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilian priest named Dominic de Guzmán. It was approved by Pope Honorius ...

and is within the jurisdiction of the Western Dominican Province. The church's current

prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...

is Fr. Dominic Briese, and the current

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

is Fr. Dominic David Maichrowicz. The church building, its priory, and its parish school building were added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1984 as Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Priory, and School. Damage from the 2001 Nisqually earthquake led to extensive repairs in 2010. It ministers to the Catholic undergraduate and graduate students at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

through the Prince of Peace

Newman Center Newman Centers, Newman Houses, Newman Clubs, or Newman Communities are Catholic campus ministry centers at secular universities. The movement was inspired by the writings of Cardinal John Henry Newman encouraging societies for Catholic studen ...

, which is the fifth-oldest Newman Center and the first to be run by the Dominican Order. Fr. Marcin Szymański is the current pastor of the Newman Center, and Fr. Chrysostom Mijinke, is the parochial vicar. As of 2019,

FOCUS Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...

missionaries have been serving the parish and Newman Center's ministries as well. The church is unique among the Order of Preachers because of its practice of appointing yearly Dominican

seminarians A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clerg ...

to serve as "student brothers" for one year, working with both the pastor of Blessed Sacrament and the chaplains at the University of Washington Newman Center to deliver catechesis to a variety of public audiences. The

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. They were created by the Catholic Church. Priories may be monastic houses of monks or nuns (such as the Benedictines, the Cistercians, or t ...

, completed in 1922, was designed by Arnold Constable. With The school, designed by the

Beezer Brothers The Beezer Brothers were American architects active from the late 19th-century to the Great Depression. They were twins, who practiced together in western Pennsylvania before moving to Seattle, Washington in 1907 to participate in the city's ra ...

, completed in 1913, was a two-story woodframe structure. "Because of numerous building and fire code violations, the building was condemned in 1948. Plans to demolish the existing structure and erect a new parish hall on the site will probably be executed in the near future". A replacement school was built in 1950 already?

References

External links

Blessed Sacrament ChurchPrince of Peace Catholic Newman Center
National Register of Historic Places in Seattle Dominican churches in the United States Roman Catholic churches in Seattle Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington (state) Roman Catholic churches in Washington (state) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle Buildings and structures in University District, Seattle {{Washington-NRHP-stub