Chronologically it is the second Polish religious center in Chicago, after establishing the St. Stanislaus Kostka parish. In view of the dynamic development of the community, at the beginning of the 1870s Father Adolf Bakanowski, parish priest of St. Stanislaus Kostka, decided to erect a new church. This task was entrusted to the St. Joseph Society. The first wooden church was dedicated already in 1873. At the request of the parish committee, Archbishop Daniel F. Feehan dedicated the church to the Holy Trinity (and not, as originally planned, to St. Joseph). Administratively, it was a branch of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, run by priests from the Resurrectionist Congregation.

From the very beginning of the life of the new community its members took active steps to make it independent and to establish a separate parish. However, the church authorities did not approve and no sooner than after three years (1876) the church was closed ”due to the lack of proper financial management and other reasons”. Despite that, the activities did not stop and in the spring of 1877 Fr. Wojciech Mielcurzyn took care of the church; however, after his death in 1881 the church was again in need of the priest for the next few years. It was reopened on March 3, 1889 with Father Szymon Kobrzyński at the helm, but less than three months later it was closed again. Finally, after two decades of persistent efforts, which included a visit to Rome, in June 1893 Bishop Francesco Satolli, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, made the final decision to open the church to the faithful and establish a parish.

This time the pastoral care was entrusted to the Congregation of the Holy Cross, and the first parish priest of Trójcowo was Fr. Kazimierz S. Sztuczko, vicar of the St. Hedwig parish in South Bend, Indiana. After a difficult beginning there came a period of intense development of the community, which was continuously increased by the inflow of new waves of emigration from Poland (mainly from Galicia and the Kingdom of Poland). Trójcowo’s population was the largest in the years of the First World War, when the annual number of baptisms in the parish was about 1300. The parishioners were actively involved in the work of religious confraternities and cultural, educational and social organizations. Close contacts were maintained with the most important Polish organizations: The Polish National Alliance, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, the Polish Union and the Polish Women’s Alliance of America. Official parish delegates participated in important Polish events in the US, such as the Congress of Polish Catholics (from the first one held in 1901 in Buffalo) or the ceremonial unveiling of a monument to Tadeusz Kościuszko in Chicago (1904).

Father Sztuczko proved to be an efficient manager, successfully fulfilling the most important needs of the new parish. Already in 1894 he erected a new building for the parish elementary school, whose history dates back to 1887, and entrusted the care of students to the teachers from the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. In 1910 he opened the Holy Trinity Secondary School. The school was supervised by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, and the important part of the curriculum was the study of religion and Polish language and the promotion of national traditions. In the interwar period the school boasted outstanding graduates, among whom were ”priests, teachers, medical doctors, dentists, engineers, lawyers, chemists, pharmacists, musicians, organists, accountants, university professors, bookkeepers, merchants and industrialists”.

In the years 1900-1904 the parish priest made purchases of land necessary for the construction of a new church, built by the architect Wiliam Krieg on the basis of an earlier design by Albert Olszewski Von Herbulis, which had turned out to be impossible to implement. The cornerstone was consecrated by Bishop James Edward Quigley on June 25, 1905, and the dedication of the temple took place on October 6, 1906. The earlier wooden church was demolished. The new church, 200 feet long and 125 feet wide, had 1700 seats, including the quire.

The church was built as a two-story hall church with a transept and straightly terminated chancel. A powerful impression is created by the monumental five-axis façade of the church in Noble Street, with massive towers on the sides and a column portico, the architrave of which is adorned with the name of the church written in golden majuscule. The white stone architectural elements, such as the frames of the entrances and windows, as well as columns and cornices, contrast with the darker-color brickwork of the wall, creating an original effect of great decorative value. Noteworthy are the triple bronze Millenium Doors, designed by Jerzy Kenar in 2000, in the entrances on the axis of the façade.

The interior of the church is single-space, without supports, which was made possible by the steal frame construction of the church. Its nine-partite surface is covered with a painting decoration with biblical scenes, made in 1941 by Kazimierz Kosik and Ludwik Spiczak. Another remarkable feature is the interesting depiction of patron saints of Poland at the head of a procession of the faithful led by the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The main altar in the chancel was built in 1906 in the style combining elements of Romanticism, Gothic and Renaissance. The painting of the Holy Trinity in the main altar is a transposition of Herman Han’s work and dates back to the early 1950s, when it replaced the former painting donated in 1920 by Towarzystwo Niewiast Różańcowych (the Society of Rosary Women). The figures of saints in the altar, the stations of the Way of the Cross (purchased in 1907) and other statues in the church come from the Daprato Statuary Company, specializing in the production of devotional objects.

Above the main altar, on the western wall of the chancel, there is a painting depicting the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, supplemented by images of contemporary saints – St. John Paul II and St. Faustina, and of the primates of Poland – Stefan Wyszyński and Augustin Hlond. The interior design features stained glass windows – the two in the chancel are a jubilee offering from the early 1920s, and it was not until 1940 that the parish priest obtained permission from the parishioners to put stained glass designs in the high windows of the church’s main body. They were created by Irena Lorentowicz and their installation lasted until the end of 1955.

With the establishment of the Polish Pastoral Mission in 1988, the Trójcowo parish was taken over by the Society of Christ of the North American Province. The lower church was then adopted for social purposes, and ”catacombs” were created in a part of this space. They house a valuable collection of relics, which was started already in 1911 by the parish priest Kazimierz Sztuczko. The unusual collection was enriched by subsequent priests, and in recent years more than 200 reliquaries from the closed churches of the Archdiocese of Chicago have been sent to Trójcowo.

Chronology

1871 - St. Joseph Society was founded at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Chicago

1873 - first wooden church of the Holy Trinity was built

1893 - erection of the parish of Holy Trinity

1905 - cornerstone for the new church was consecrated

1906 - new church was dedicated

1907 - construction of the church was completed, first mission in the parish

1914 - presbytery was constructed

1917 - school building was constructed

1928 - secondary school building was constructed

1934 - the church was visited by General Józef Haller

1949 - a convent for religious brothers was constructed

1959 - a convent for religious sisters was constructed

1988 - The Polish Pastoral Mission was established and the church was taken over by the priests of the Society of Christ of the North American Province

Text originally published in a book issued by the POLONIKA Institute.
Katarzyna Chrudzimska-Uhera, Anna Sylwia Czyż, Jacek Gołębiowski, Bartłomiej Gutowski, Polish parishes and churches in Chicago, Warszawa 2019, pp. 55-63.