The St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Roman Catholic Church is a church located at 5818 Dubois Street in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. The church was listed on 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 1989.

History

In 1898, the parish of St. Stanislaus was established to relieve the overcrowding in the Polish congregation of at St. Albertus. A church and school were purchased for the parish from the Protestant Bethel Church, and in 1900 a new elementary school was constructed. Reverend F. G. Zella was assigned as the first pastor. However, between 1905-1910 the population of the church doubled, and a new church was desperately needed. In 1911, work began on a magnificent

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

church with a lavish Beaux-Arts interior, which was completed in 1913. In 1921, a convent was built for the

Felician Sisters The Felician Sisters, in full Congregation of Sisters of St. Felix of Cantalice Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi (abbreviated CSSF), is a religious institute of pontifical right whose members profess public vows of and live in comm ...

who ran the school; seven years later, a high school was constructed. By the late 1940s, St. Stanislaus was the largest Polish

parish school A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wor ...

in Michigan. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the demographics of the neighborhood changed as the Polish Catholics moved out of the city and into the suburbs; in addition, the construction of

Interstate 94 Interstate 94 (I-94) is an east–west Interstate Highway connecting the Great Lakes and northern Great Plains regions of the United States. Its western terminus is just east of Billings, Montana, at a junction with I-90; its eastern ter ...

split the parish and displaced a number of families. Enrollment in the parish school declined, and the grade school was closed in 1968, the high school in 1973, and the convent demolished soon after. The parish underwent a resurgence in the late 1970s, but the 1989 reorganization of the

Archdiocese of Detroit The Archdiocese of Detroit () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church covering the south-east portion of Michigan in the United States. The archdiocese consists counties of Lapeer County, Michigan, Lap ...

eliminated the parish. The Archdiocese sold the structure to University of Michigan organist Sam Koontz of Ann Arbor, MI in 1989. The congregation of Promise Land Missionary Baptist Church purchased the church from Koontz's estate in 1995, but lost it through foreclosure in September 2012. In January 2013, the church was for sale ''as-is'' for $79,000. It requires extensive work and several stained glass windows and other architectural elements had previously been removed. The school buildings house the Detroit Academy of Arts & Sciences and were not affected by the foreclosure and sale.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Roman Catholic Church Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Christian organizations established in 1898 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1913 Beaux-Arts architecture in Michigan Gothic Revival church buildings in Michigan Renaissance Revival architecture in Michigan Roman Catholic churches in Detroit Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit Polish-American culture in Detroit National Register of Historic Places in Detroit 1898 establishments in Michigan 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States

History

See also

References