FORD CITY, Pa. -- As dwindling membership and a lack of funds force ethnic churches across the country to close, parishioners worry their cultural pasts could be lost.
Holy Trinity, a Slovak church in Ford City, Pa., shut its doors in early August because of low attendance, a shortage of priests and a lack of money. At the same time, St. Francis of Paola, a predominantly Polish church, and St. Mary's, attended by German families, closed.
Church officials said there were too few people to support the Pittsburgh-area churches, according to the Associated Baptist Press (ABP).
"When everything boils down, all you have left is your roots," said Rose Bloser, 51, who had attended Holy Trinity most of her life. "I realize we're all in a melting pot, but you always keep some ties to where you came from."
Most of the ethnic churches now facing closure were established in the 1800s and early 1900s when Eastern European immigrants came to America for work. Many of the churches are Catholic.
The Pittsburgh Catholic diocese closed 10 ethnic parishes from 1988 to 1995. The closings appear to be a trend, according to the ABP. A Polish parish in Cleveland closed two years ago, and in March, a Roman Catholic church in Gary, Ind., closed after attendance dwindled to about 200. At one time, the church drew nearly 1,000 Polish, Czech and Lithuanian parishioners.
