Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Catholic

St Josaphat’s Ukrainian Catholic Church (1975)

In 1951, a time of Soviet persecution of Ukrainian Catholics in their homeland, Ukrainian exiles settling in the New Britain area founded Saint Josephat’s Ukrainian Catholic Parish. The growth of the parish led to the purchase, in 1955, of a former Assyrian Church on Beatty Street, soon enlarged with materials from a dismantled six-family building from East Hartford, that had been purchased by the parish. In 1966, a house was purchased on Eddy Glover Boulevard to become a rectory and, in 1974, there was a ground breaking on the same Boulevard for the building of a new church. The church was designed by the James P. Cassidy architectural firm of West Hartford and parishioners of St. Josephat’s provided most of the labor for its construction. Completed in 1975, the church has three gold and blue domes, copied from those in St. Sophia Church of Holy Wisdom in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. In 1985, St. Josaphat’s Ukrainian Catholic parish and St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox parish worked together in having a new section of Route 9 through New Britain named the Taras Shevchenko Expressway, in honor of the great Ukrainian poet. In 1991, the parish celebrated the independence of Ukraine from the old Soviet Union.

Holy Trinity Byzantine Catholic Church (1928)

The Carpatho-Rusyn people come from from the region of the Eastern Carpathian Mountains in Europe, an area where today the borders of Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland meet. Many Carpatho-Rusyns (also known as Ruthenians) were members of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, a Greek Catholic Church which is in communion with Rome, but which uses the Byzantine liturgical rite. Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants in New Britain founded the Holy Trinity Byzantine Catholic parish in 1900. A small wood-framed church was built on Beaver Street in 1901. After this building burned in 1909, a second wood church was constructed in 1910. With the parish growing, resources were gathered to build a larger church on the same site. The present steel and brick structure, designed by Hartford architect Frederic C. Teich, was completed in 1928.

St. Michael’s Church, Derby (1907)

Merry Christmas!! Today our building is St. Michael’s Church, on Derby Avenue in Derby. Polish immigrants established St. Michael the Archangel parish in 1903 and the church was built in 1906-1907. A neighboring parish school, staffed by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, was built in 1914.

St. Mary’s Church, New Haven (1870)

St. Mary’s Church in New Haven was built by the first Catholic parish in the city and the second in Connecticut, founded in 1832 by the Irish Immigrant community. To express their growing influence, the Gothic Revival style church was constructed in 1870 on Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven’s most privileged neighborhood. The architect was James J. Murphy of Providence. A spire was originally planned, but not completed until just a few years ago. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization founded in 1882 and based in New Haven, originally met in the basement of the church.

St. Joseph Church, Bristol (1925)

The first St. Joseph Church, Bristol’s first Catholic church, was built in 1855. This original wood building, enlarged in 1879, was eventually replaced by the current granite church, dedicated in 1925. Designed by Joseph A. Jackson in the English Tudor Gothic style (or Perpendicular Gothic), the church is on Queen Street, facing Federal Hill Green.

SS Cyril and Methodius Church (1917)

Once, together with the nearby Polish National Home, at the heart of a vibrant Polish community in Hartford, SS Cyril and Methodius Church still serves Polish-Americans. Built in 1917, on Charter Oak Avenue, the church features elements of the Gothic Revival, Romanesque Revival and High Victorian Gothic styles.

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Cathedral of Saint Joseph (1962)

The original Gothic-style St. Joseph’s Cathedral of 1892, built on Farmington Avenue in Hartford and designed by Patrick Keely, burned in 1956. Although the exterior survived, it was decided to completely rebuild in a modern Gothic style utilizing a structure of reinforced concrete and an exterior covering of limestone. The cathedral is notable for the massive frieze over the entrance, featuring St. Joseph, its stained glass windows, made in France, and the ceramic tile mural, located behind the altar, of “Christ in Glory,” which is the largest in the world.