Citing years of declining membership, the Archdiocese of Chicago suppressed (closed) Christ the Redeemer Bielarusian Parish July 21.
The parish, founded in the late 1950s to minister to Chicago's small cadre of Byzantine Catholics from Belarus, was located in a renovated firehouse at 3107 W. Fullerton, Chicago. Never a large parish, at the end it usually had fewer than 20 worshippers at Sunday Mass.
The administrator since 1995 was Father John J. McDonnell, recently appointed pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish, Chicago.
Christ the Redeemer was the only parish in the United States serving Belarusian Byzantine Catholics. The parish was founded as members of the immigrant community gathered together for Mass, first at Josephinum High School and later on Fullerton. In recent years, however, the number of parishioners had drastically declined, ending with the closing of the parish. The parish shared the Fullerton location with the Ss. Peter and Paul Romanian Catholic Mission which will continue meeting there.
The Catholic New World, Aug. 3, 2003