The Story of St. Casimir's Church, Cleveland

To jest moja parafia - Sw. Kazimierz

This is the Polish parish in Clevie's St. Clair-Superior neighbourhood. In earlier times, Polish people from Poznań moved in in large numbers. They got to have their own parish because św. Stanisław, which serves the Warsaw Poles at South Broadway, was too far away. The church was closed in 2009 and re-opened in 2012 after parishioners (and, they say, the patron St. Casimir himself) kicked a fuss. When the bishop came to close the church, Władysław Szylwian pulled the plug on his microphone and became the instant village hero. The uncles and aunties here lured me in with Polish cuisine and have managed to conscript me as parishioner. They also signed me up for their parish school alumni club, but I have no idea how that works.

The neighbourhood of St. Clair-Superior was a literal riot in the '80s and '90s. The pastor was regularly mugged on parish grounds, and the sound of gunfire lulled residents to sleep. Sw. Kazimierz was turned into a fortress with a perimeter of barbed wire, and the stained glass windows, which the hoodlums liked to shoot at for sport, had a bulletproof layer installed. The gangsters have supposedly shot one another all to death since that time, and thus the neighbourhood today is somewhat less exciting than it used to be.