[Most of this article is taken from a page one story in the Akron Beacon Journal on Friday by religion writer Colette M. Jenkins. Click on the headline to read her full stpry.]
Bishop Richard G. Lennon will officiate at three Masses which will marking the closing of two old Akron parishes and the opening of a new parish called Visitation of Mary which will be formed from them.
Bishop Lennon, will celebrate the closing Mass at St. John the Baptist Church on Saturday at 4 p.m. He also will celebrate the closing Mass at Annunciation Church on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Bishop Lennon will also celebrate the first Mass for the new parish at 10 a.m. Sunday, November 8.
St. John's was organized on June 2, 1907, as a parish for Slovakian families in the area. Some of them had been traveling to Barberton to find a pastor fluent in Slovak. Others attended Mass at St. Bernard, a German parish, where they found similar traditions from the old country.
Initially, the Slovak congregation met in the basement chapel of the current St. Bernard, at Broadway and University Avenue in downtown Akron. In 1908, the Slovak community bought St. Bernard's former church at Broadway and Center Street.
As the congregation grew, it purchased property on Brown Street to build an elementary school, which opened in 1927. Ten years later, it bought a building near the school for a rectory as part of a plan to complete a parish complex. For several years, four Masses were said on Sundays in the school's third-floor chapel and one Mass was offered at the downtown church.
By 1939, the downtown building began to show signs of deterioration. It was condemned a year later, forcing the congregation to speed up its plans for a new church. Ground was broken for a church in May 1941 at the current site. The $36,000 English Gothic-style church constructed of Briar Hill sandstone was dedicated, debt-free, Dec. 21 that year.
The old church on Broadway was sold and many items (including the Schantz pipe organ, the statue of St. John the Baptist and oak pews) were moved to the new building. A house on Stanton Street, purchased in 1942, became the convent for the Vincentian Sisters of Charity, who taught at the school.
A new rectory, new convent and a school expansion, including a gymnasium-auditorium, were dedicated in 1951. The church was expanded toward Brown Street in 1958 to accommodate nearly 400 more people.
Mary Topper, who moved into the old rectory directly across the street from the church in 1952, remembers when the parish was bustling with activity.
''There used to be Masses practically every hour on Sunday. We had to put folding chairs in the aisles, until the fire marshal said we couldn't do that,'' said Topper, 88. ''As people moved away from Akron to the suburbs, the congregation got smaller. We got to the point where we only had one Mass on Saturday and one on Sunday.''
Because of declining enrollment, the parish school was closed in 1986 and merged with the Annunciation School. Annunciation-St. John closed in 2006 amid a continuing drop in enrollment and financial hardship.
St. John's last full-time resident priest, the Rev. Ralph Coletta, retired in 2005 after more than 18 years of service. The church was debt-free when he retired, and it had remained financially solvent.
Because the parish has fewer than 300 households, it does not meet the diocesan standard (a minimum of 500 households) to be assigned a full-time pastor. The Rev. Patrick Shields, an associate at Holy Family in Stow, has served as the sacramental priest. The Rev. Paul Rosing, administrator at Holy Family, is parochial administrator of St. John.
Fr. Rosing said many of the 250 families registered at St. John's have indicated that they will join other parishes near their homes. The current parish membership lives in 24 different ZIP codes, mostly in the southern portion of Summit County. The majority of parishioners have said they will go to Visitation of Mary, St. Paul's (at 1580 Brown St.) or St. Francis de Sales (on Manchester Road in Coventry Township).
Mary Ann Mushinski, a lifetime parishioner at St. John's, said one of the most difficult things about closing the parish is knowing that the church community will be scattered. Mushinski said she and her sister, Monica Fanady, will go to the newly merged parish.
''I'm hoping that we will become a loving community at Visitation, just like the one we've had at St. John's,'' Mushinski said. ''I'm really going to miss the people at St. John's because we have been a family of people committed to helping each other and the people in the neighborhood. I'm confident that we will continue to serve people through ministry at Visitation because the people of Annunciation and the pastor have made it clear that Visitation will be 'our' parish.''
As the century-old parish closes on Brown Street, members will be given a 100th anniversary pictorial directory and a special St. John the Baptist icon. A reception is scheduled in the parish hall after the closing Mass.
