The Archdiocese of Detroit formally established Divine Providence as a national parish under canon law — a deliberate decision, with a promise attached. It was a canonical status the community asked for and the Archbishop granted, in writing.

A parish that had to move — twice

Divine Providence traces its roots to St. George, founded by Detroit’s Lithuanian Catholics in 1908. Twice in the twentieth century the community lost its church to Detroit’s highway construction, and twice it rebuilt. By the late 1960s it faced a third move — and its leaders decided that if they were going to build again, they would secure, once and for all, the parish’s standing as a Lithuanian parish, not tied to any neighborhood.

The request (1967)

On August 18, 1967, the parish committee formalized its request and sent it to the Detroit chancery. In their own words — preserved, original spelling and all, in the parish’s 1973 anniversary book — they asked:

“We request that our church be legally called Lithuanian, with the canonical and ecclesiastical status, title, rights and privileges of a Lithuanian Roman Catholic Church, as now enjoyed by the Divine Providence Lithuanian R. Catholic Church, with no territorial boundaries for the Lithuanians.”

They were not asking for a favor. They were asking the Archdiocese to recognize, in canon law, what the community already was: a parish of a people, gathered from across the region, not a parish of a place.

The meeting (December 2, 1968)

On December 2, 1968, a large gathering of parishioners met with the newly consecrated auxiliary bishop of Detroit, Thomas J. Gumbleton — ordained that May by Archbishop John Dearden — at the invitation of the pastor, Fr. Michael Kundrat (Mykolas Kundrotas). The parish’s account is candid: the bishop began by trying to persuade them to accept an ordinary territorial parish and give up Lithuanian status. The younger generation and the Knights of Lithuania answered him with careful arguments for a non-territorial Lithuanian parish. The committee chair, Antanas Dainius, called for a vote. It was unanimous. Closing the meeting, the bishop said simply:

“It will be as you wish.”

The letter (December 31, 1968)

Weeks later, the promise arrived on Archdiocese of Detroit letterhead, from the Office of the Vicar for Parishes and initialed T.J.G. It reads, in the paragraph that matters most:

“He has agreed with the selection of the site at Beech Daly and Nine Mile Road. He also has accepted the decision of the parishioners to make this parish a national parish, with the rights and limitations that are canonically imposed on such a parish. In effect this means that only people of Lithuanian Nationality can become registered parishioners, and the support of the parish must be provided by them.”

Read that again. This is the Archdiocese of Detroit, on behalf of Archbishop Dearden, invoking canon law by name — “the rights and limitations that are canonically imposed on such a parish” — and setting out the exact terms: only Lithuanians may register, and the Lithuanians themselves must fund it. That is not an informal ethnic flavor. That is a national parish, established by decision of the Archbishop and put in writing.

They kept their word

The community met every condition the letter named. Lithuanians funded the parish themselves and built it with their own hands — church, rectory, and cultural center — consecrating the new church in Southfield on September 8, 1973, the same year the Soviet regime was bulldozing the Hill of Crosses in occupied Lithuania. The one obligation the Archdiocese attached in 1968 — “the support of the parish must be provided by them” — has been honored for more than half a century. To this day, Divine Providence carries zero debt and funds itself.

Why this is different

Every argument in this publication about metrics and yardsticks rests, in the end, on this letter. Divine Providence is a personal (national) parish under canon law — a category the Church’s own law provides for, defined by a people rather than a territory. The Archdiocese did not stumble into that status; it granted it, deliberately, in writing, in 1968.

Which means that measuring Divine Providence today by territorial metrics — the size of the surrounding neighborhood, whether another church sits nearby, how the local population has shifted — is not just the wrong test. It contradicts the Archdiocese’s own written decision that this parish would never be territorial in the first place. And the single condition attached to that decision, that the community fund itself, has been kept in full.

A promise was made, in writing, by the Archbishop’s own office. The community has kept its half for fifty-seven years. The only open question is whether the Archdiocese will keep its own word.

Sources

The 1968 letter shown here is from the Office of the Vicar for Parishes, Archdiocese of Detroit, to Fr. Michael J. Kundrat, Administrator, Church of Divine Providence, dated December 31, 1968 (from the parish’s archives). The account of the 1967 request and the December 2, 1968 meeting, including the request text and Bishop Gumbleton’s words, is drawn from the parish’s anniversary book,

• Dievo Apvaizdos Parapija 1908–1973 (Divine Providence Parish, 1908–1973), pp. 48–51.

• On Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton (consecrated auxiliary bishop of Detroit, May 1, 1968, by Archbishop John Dearden) — Wikipedia; Archdiocese of Detroit.

• On personal/national parishes in canon law (Canon 518) — see our companion post, “A Personal Parish, Not a Place.”

A note on the request text: the 1967 wording is reproduced from the parish anniversary book; obvious typographical errors in the original have been silently corrected, but no words have been changed.

Two kinds of parish

Canon 518 lays it out plainly. As a general rule, a parish is territorial — it embraces all the faithful of a given area. But the same canon continues: where it is useful, personal parishes are to be established, “determined by reason of the rite, language or nationality” of the faithful, or on some other basis.

That second category is not a loophole. It is a recognized, deliberate form of parish — one defined by a people rather than a place. Ethnic or “national” parishes are exactly this: the Lithuanian, Polish, Korean, Albanian, Croatian, Hungarian, Slovak, Italian, and Vietnamese communities of the Archdiocese are personal parishes, erected precisely so that a scattered people could keep its faith and language together. Their members come from across the region by design. Being geographically dispersed is not a sign of decline — it is the definition of what they are.

Which makes the usual metrics a category error

If a parish is, by the bishop’s own decree, defined by a people and not a territory, then judging it by territorial measures — neighborhood population, geographic overlap, “there is already a church three miles away” — measures the wrong thing entirely. It is like testing a fish by how well it climbs a tree. The canonical purpose of a personal parish is to gather a particular community; the honest question is whether that community is still alive and still gathering, not whether its members happen to live inside a set of lines on a map.

The law also requires a real process

Canon law does give the diocesan bishop broad authority here — under Canon 515 §2, only he can establish, suppress, or notably alter a parish. But it attaches a condition: he may not do so unless he has genuinely consulted his council of priests, the presbyteral council. Canon 127 makes that consultation a requirement for validity, and canonists stress it must be a real weighing of the arguments for and against each individual parish — not a formality. This is why the listening sessions and the feedback survey matter: parishioner testimony is not a courtesy the Archdiocese extends. It is part of a discernment the Church’s own law takes seriously.

And a church is not easily closed

Even where parishes are combined, the Apostolic See has clarified that a parish is not truly “suppressed” — it is merged. Closing the church building itself is a separate, higher bar: canon 1222 requires the bishop to establish a grave cause before a church can be relegated to profane use. A living, solvent, debt-free parish that fills a real pastoral purpose does not obviously meet that test.

And the appeal is real

Parishioners are not without recourse. In Cleveland, Boston, Buffalo, Springfield, and St. Louis, parishioners have appealed closures and mergers to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy — and in a number of cases the Vatican has reversed the bishop. Cleveland saw roughly a dozen closures overturned in 2012; Buffalo parishes have won reversals more recently. The path exists, and it has worked. It begins with a documented, faith-first record of why a community matters.

Divine Providence was made a personal parish for a reason: to keep a people’s faith, language, and community together across a diaspora. Under the Church’s own law, the right question is not how big the neighborhood is. It is whether this community is alive and still doing what it was established to do. By that measure — its own — it is.

Sources & further reading

This is a general explainer, not legal advice. For the canonical texts and commentary:

• Canon 518 (territorial and personal parishes) — Code of Canon Law, Vatican; Canon Law Made Easy.

• Canon 515 §2 and 127 (only the bishop may suppress or alter a parish, after genuine consultation) — National Catholic Reporter; Catholic Answers.

• Canon 1222 (grave cause required to relegate a church to profane use) — CatholicPhilly; U.S. Catholic.

• Vatican reversals of parish closures on appeal (Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Louis) — Catholic Register; WGRZ (Buffalo).

A parish is alive only as long as we keep it alive — as long as we come, as long as we take part, as long as we carry it forward. It is not enough to be on the parish rolls. The parish needs you — your presence, your work, your prayer.

And so, what is essential in a parish? I answer: the life of God’s grace, which flows from the head into the body, and is given to the members only when they are joined to the Body of Christ. This divine life of grace is the essence of the parish. Its primary task is to give this life to its members, to sustain it, and to lead them toward maturity. This is why it is so important that we rightly understand, value, and support our parish.

It is a joy to see in the parish those enthusiastic people who spare neither time, nor labor, nor sacrifice for this hearth of spiritual formation. I would wish that everyone felt it as their own. For it was out of the cares of each one of us, out of each one’s greater or smaller sacrifice, that this hearth came to be. May it be our own not only when we have need of it, but also when it has need of our help or our sacrifice.

We are more fortunate than many of our brethren who, having no church of their own, are granted only the right to have Mass in their own language. A good number of our parishes are fading as their surroundings change. Having built a beautiful and ornate church, our countrymen begin to move on — to a newer, better neighborhood — leaving their religious and cultural centers to the mercy of fate. Our parish, too, may one day face such trials…

The church is built. The spire rises to heaven and the eternal flame burns… but is the work finished? I would sooner say that it is only the beginning. It will not be finished until a dwelling for the Lord is built in the soul of each of us, until, day by day, we help one another, until we can all say: “Lord, we are Your people.”

— Excerpts from “The Parish Brings Christ” (Parapija atneša Kristų), Fr. Viktoras Kriščiūnevičius, 1978

A parish is people.

It is hundreds of baptisms, weddings, and funerals. It is Sunday Mass, the choir's hymns, the rosary prayed aloud, the Stations of the Cross, children's laughter in the school hallways, scout meetings, folk-dance rehearsals, and the shared work that has carried on for decades.

It is generations of people who gave their time, their labor, their money, and their hearts so that this place could live.

When we say “our parish” or “our home,” we are not talking about deeds of ownership. We are talking about belonging. About community. About a place where our families’ stories became woven together with our faith. Nearly fifty years ago, Fr. Viktoras Kriščiūnevičius wrote that the essence of a parish is the life of Christ, flowing through the community. Not through buildings. Not through documents. Through people.

After all, Lithuania does not belong to us in law either. We do not hold it by right of ownership. And yet we still say “our Lithuania” — because what binds us to it is memory, responsibility, love, and inheritance.

It is the same with a parish.

Buildings can belong to institutions. But the history belongs to the people who made it. The memory belongs to the people who carried it. And the community belongs to those who lived, prayed, and raised their children within it.

If a parish were only a piece of real estate, no one would gather at the listening sessions today, no one’s heart would ache over its future, and no one would be sharing photographs like these.

But people do care. And they care because, for many of us, this is not simply a building. It is the place where, for decades, faith, language, culture, and communal life were handed down.

So yes — in law, it belongs to the Archdiocese. But in our hearts it always has been, and always will be, our parish. Our home. Not because of ownership. Because of love.

The Archdiocese of Detroit is restructuring now — and this is our moment to be heard. Here is how you can help.

1. Take the survey — by July 31

The Archdiocese of Detroit Listening Session Feedback Survey is the single most important thing you can do. It is open until July 31, 2026.

Speak from faith first — how Divine Providence has helped your family pray, worship, and raise Catholic children. Our full guide to the survey walks you through it, point by point.

2. Share the facts

The case for Divine Providence is strong — and now it is documented. Share these with fellow parishioners, family, and anyone who loves this parish:

• Who Does the Parish Belong To? — why ownership decides which parishes survive.

• The Numbers Behind Divine Providence — bottom on scale, top 5% on resources, already back in the black.

• By the Numbers: The Archdiocese's 13 Ethnic Parishes — the communities that built the Archdiocese.

3. Speak up — with warmth

If you attend a listening session, keep it prayerful and cooperative. We are discerning our future together with our shepherds, not fighting them. Lead with faith; let culture, school, and scouts follow as its fruit. One true, personal story is worth more than ten arguments.

4. Spread the word

Send this publication to anyone connected to Divine Providence — especially those who have drifted away. Every voice counts. Visit and share SaveOurLithuanianParishes.org.

5. Stay in touch

Questions, stories, or want to help organize? Email us at info@saveourlithuanianparishes.org, and subscribe below for updates as the restructuring unfolds.

Faith first. Culture as its vessel. The mission — for the next generation.

As wave after wave arrived — Irish, then Germans, then Poles in the 1850s, and later Belgians, Italians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, and more — each community built its own church, in its own language, with its own hands and money. These were “national” parishes: gathered around a people and a rite, not a neighborhood. When Polish immigrants were pushed to the back pews of a German parish, they organized St. Albertus in 1871 — the first Polish parish in Detroit and the mother church of its Polonia. By 1933 the Gospel was preached in Detroit in twenty-two languages, and of the Archdiocese’s ninety-eight parishes, roughly a third — thirty-two — were national ones.

This was no sideshow. As the auto plants turned Detroit into a boomtown — Ford, Dodge, and Packard drawing Poles, Italians, and Hungarians by the tens of thousands — the immigrant church rose at the same furious pace: in the 1920s alone, forty-six new churches were founded in the city. Their people built the largest churches in the state. Sweetest Heart of Mary, raised by Detroit’s Poles and dedicated in 1893, drew more than 10,000 to its opening and is still the largest church in the city; St. Florian, built for the Poles who came to work at Dodge, was the second-largest parish in Detroit by the 1920s. The schools, charities, and institutions that became the Archdiocese were, in large part, immigrant-built.

The ethnic parishes didn’t appear alongside the Archdiocese of Detroit. They built it. The thirteen that remain are what’s left of that backbone.

Divine Providence isn’t the only parish in the Archdiocese of Detroit defined by a people rather than a place. Across the Archdiocese, 13 parishes are “ethnic” or “national” parishes — gathered around a language and a rite, drawing their members from across the region rather than from a single neighborhood. They are the Slovak, Korean, Albanian, Polish, Vietnamese, Italian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Lithuanian communities of metro Detroit. Here is who they are, what their books look like, and where Divine Providence sits among them.

Small, and spread across the Archdiocese

These 13 parishes are scattered across 8 of the Archdiocese’s 15 Planning Areas — there is no single “ethnic” district. They range from the 842-attendee Slovak parish of SS. Cyril & Methodius down to the 97-attendee Croatian parish of St. Lucy. Divine Providence, at 144 weekly, is the second-smallest of the group by attendance. (Two of the thirteen — St. Paul, the Albanian parish, and Our Lady of Czestochowa — do not report weekly attendance in the workbooks.)

Where Divine Providence ranks

By raw size, Divine Providence sits near the bottom. By what it holds per parishioner, it sits at the very top. Of the ten ethnic parishes that report it, Divine Providence has the highest reserves per weekly attendee in the entire group — nearly $7,000 per person, and #9 of roughly 200 parishes in the whole Archdiocese.

The ethnic parishes as a set

Step back and look at the thirteen as a category, and a pattern emerges. As a group, the ethnic parishes are smaller than the rest of the Archdiocese — a median of 386 weekly, against 538 elsewhere. But they are markedly leaner and better-capitalized. Every single one is debt-free, against 88% of the rest of the Archdiocese, and their median reserves per parishioner run higher ($2,240 versus $1,680). These are small, self-reliant communities that have quietly been funding themselves. Divine Providence is the most extreme example of that pattern — but it is a pattern, not an exception.

A backbone that still holds

Look at the thirteen together and the founders’ pattern is still visible. As a group they hold roughly $14.2 million in unrestricted reserves and, in the most recent year, ran a combined surplus of nearly $1 million — seven of the thirteen in the black. These are not wards of the Archdiocese; they are among its most self-reliant units.

Nor are they spent. In 2024 the thirteen produced 1,141 life-giving sacraments — 355 baptisms, 335 first communions, 277 confirmations, and 122 marriages — against 188 funerals. That is six new-life sacraments for every funeral.

What has thinned is the crowd inside the walls, not the mission. Most of these are the large historic churches the immigrants built for congregations several times today’s size, so as a set they fill only about a fifth of their seats — a median 21% capacity utilization. Divine Providence is the striking exception: at 48%, it is the fullest ethnic parish in the Archdiocese.

Ethnic parishes vs. the rest of the Archdiocese

Set the thirteen beside the other 196 parishes in the Archdiocese and the pattern is stark: ethnic parishes lose on the metrics built for a neighborhood, and win on the ones that measure a living church.

Start with the yardstick the Archdiocese leans on. By capacity used — bodies against building size — the ethnic parishes fill a median 21% of their pews, against 30% for everyone else. But these are the grand churches immigrants built for crowds several times today’s size, filled by members who drive in from across the region rather than the block. It measures the building, not the faith.

Change the test to what happens at the altar, and the picture flips. For every funeral, an ethnic parish celebrates six new-life sacraments — baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations, and weddings — against three for the rest of the Archdiocese. They replace those they bury twice as fast.

They are also the most self-reliant parishes the Archdiocese has: every one of the thirteen is debt-free, while one in eight of the others still carries loans.

And per worshipper they hold more in reserve — a median $2,240 in unrestricted savings for every weekly attendee, against $1,680 elsewhere. Smaller congregations, better capitalized per head, funded and kept by the communities themselves.

Why it matters

The Archdiocese evaluates every parish on the same scale — attendance, sacramental throughput, priests per worshipper. On those measures the ethnic parishes look marginal. But they were never built to serve a neighborhood; they were built to keep a people’s faith and language together across a diaspora. Measured on their own terms — solvency, reserves, freedom from debt, and the loyalty of members who drive across a metro area to be together — they are among the healthiest small parishes the Archdiocese has. The question is not whether they can survive. It is whether the Archdiocese will measure them by a yardstick that can see what they are.

Sources & further reading

Parish financial and sacramental figures are drawn from the Archdiocese of Detroit’s published parish workbooks (FY24/25), covering all 209 parishes across 15 Planning Areas. Historical background draws on:

• Ste. Anne de Détroit (founded 1701), second-oldest continuously operating Catholic parish in the U.S. — Basilica of Ste. Anne de Détroit; Wikipedia.

• National parishes, twenty-two languages, and St. Albertus (1871), Detroit’s first Polish parish — Historic Detroit; Archdiocese of Detroit, “History of the Archdiocese”.

• The 1920s church-building boom under Bishop Michael Gallagher — Archdiocese of Detroit; Community in Mission (blog.adw.org).

• Sweetest Heart of Mary, largest church in the city — Wikipedia; National Catholic Register.

• St. Florian, Hamtramck, and the Polish auto-industry migration — Wikipedia.

A note on method: figures are drawn from the Archdiocese of Detroit’s own FY24/25 parish workbook covering all 209 parishes. Two of the thirteen ethnic parishes (St. Paul, Albanian, and Our Lady of Częstochowa, Polish) report sacraments but no weekly Mass attendance; any figure expressed “per worshipper” therefore uses the eleven parishes that report both, while cohort totals and per-funeral ratios use all thirteen. “Rest of the Archdiocese” means the other 196 parishes, excluding the ethnic thirteen.

As part of its current restructuring, the Archdiocese of Detroit produced a workbook for each of its parishes. Read Divine Providence’s workbook alone, and the story is grim: a small, aging Lithuanian parish running a deficit. But the Archdiocese produced these workbooks for all 209 of its parishes, across 15 Planning Areas. Read together, they tell a very different story about the same parish.

One truth emerges when you rank Divine Providence against the whole Archdiocese: it is among the smallest parishes by scale, and among the wealthiest by resource per parishioner. The Archdiocese is treating Divine Providence like a poor parish that should be merged. Its own data shows a small parish that is rich on a per-parishioner basis — a category its metrics don’t have a slot for. The chart below is the whole argument in one picture.

Small by every measure of scale

By the numbers the Archdiocese leads with, Divine Providence is genuinely small:

• 144 weekly Mass attendees — #191 of 204 ranked parishes archdiocese-wide (bottom 7%).

• 3 baptisms in 2024 — #184 of 209.

• $260K total revenue — the smallest parish operation in its Planning Area.

On the metrics the Archdiocese prioritizes — attendance, sacramental throughput, priest-to-attendee ratio — this is a hard parish to defend. That is real, and worth stating plainly.

Small — but not the smallest

Step outside Divine Providence’s own Planning Area and set it beside the Archdiocese’s other ethnic and national parishes — the Slovak, Korean, Albanian, Polish, Vietnamese, Italian, Hungarian, and Croatian communities that, like ours, are defined by heritage and rite rather than by a neighborhood boundary. Among that peer group, Divine Providence is small, but it is not the smallest: St. Lucy, the Croatian parish, is smaller still. And its deficit is far from the worst — three of these ethnic parishes are running larger operating losses. A small ethnic parish carrying a modest, recoverable shortfall is not an outlier in this company. It is a representative member of it.

Rich by every measure of resource depth

Now rank the same parish by what it holds per parishioner — and it climbs to the very top of the Archdiocese:

• Savings per weekly attendee: #9 of 200 archdiocese-wide — top 5%.

• Payable loans: #3 of 207 — effectively zero debt.

• Over $1 million in unrestricted cash, net equity above $1 million, and roughly 19 years of runway at the current burn rate.

• The highest capacity utilization in its Planning Area (48% vs. a 37% median) — the “underused building” story is false on the data.

  

The deficit already reversed

There is one more number the workbook misses, because it is looking at last year. The Archdiocese is evaluating Divine Providence on a fiscal year in which it ran a roughly $52,000 deficit. But the parish’s own bulletin tells a different story: through the first seven months of the current fiscal year, Divine Providence is running a net surplus of about $8,700 — on track for roughly +$15,000 for the year, before any new initiatives. Three years of red gave way to black without a single change the Archdiocese asked for. The turnaround has already happened; the Archdiocese is still watching last year’s movie.

The workbook itself understates the parish

The published workbook doesn’t just look at the wrong year — it also gets the current one wrong. Its figures materially understate Divine Providence’s sacramental life:

• Confirmations in 2024: the workbook says 6. The parish register shows 18 — a threefold undercount.

• Confirmations in 2025: 7, absent from the workbook entirely.

• Baptisms so far in 2026: 5 — already more than all of 2024 combined.

• A 2026 wedding, where the workbook records a single marriage for all of 2024.

The confirmations correction alone moves Divine Providence from near the bottom of the archdiocese’s sacramental ranking to roughly the middle. The trend the Archdiocese is extrapolating from — a parish quietly winding down — is no longer the trend on the ground.

A category error

Underneath all of this is a single mismatch. Divine Providence is not a territorial parish — it does not serve a neighborhood. It is a personal parish, defined by language and rite: roughly 65% of its parishioners come from outside the local boundary, many driving nearly an hour, from across Michigan and Canada. Applying territorial-parish metrics — neighborhood demographics, boundary registration, regional capture rate — to a parish built for a dispersed diaspora measures the wrong thing. The parish is functioning exactly as designed.

The one hard number

None of this means the Archdiocese is acting in bad faith. It is managing a real and painful shortage of priests across 209 parishes, and by that single measure — a full-time priest assigned to 144 worshippers — Divine Providence is genuinely hard to justify. That is the one metric the parish cannot win by argument alone; it can only be answered by a different staffing model, such as a shared priest. But priest allocation is a question about how the parish is served, not about whether it is viable. On viability, the data is not close.

Which yardstick?

None of this relitigates the attendance number. Divine Providence is small, and the priest shortage is real. But small is not the same as failing, and last year’s deficit is not this year’s. The question the data raises is not whether Divine Providence is worth keeping. It is which yardstick the Archdiocese should use to measure a small, solvent, growing personal parish its own metrics were never designed to see.

This benchmark reads Divine Providence against 29 Archdiocese of Detroit parish workbooks published in March 2026, covering all 209 parishes across 15 Planning Areas, with the financial trajectory updated from the parish’s own February 2026 bulletin.

A note on method: every figure here comes from the Archdiocese of Detroit’s own FY24/25 parish workbook for all 209 parishes. “Per weekly attendee” and “years of runway” are computed from reported Mass attendance and net income, and each ranking is among the parishes that report that particular field. Nothing here is estimated or adjusted — it is the Archdiocese’s data, read a different way.

Please do your part for Divine Providence Lithuanian Church and our longevity. It is critical to have your voice heard by completing the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Listening Session Feedback Survey — open until July 31.

Take the survey: https://form.jotform.com/261034294481152

In Short — A Guide for the Survey

Speak from your faith first. Our parish helps people pray, worship, and raise Catholic children — and school, scouts, choir, and culture all grew around that. Everything below is just to help you say, in your own words, why this community matters. Begin and end with prayer, and stay warm toward the Archdiocese — we are discerning our future together, not fighting.

The most important things to say — pick the ones true for you:

1. Faith first. Say how Divine Providence has helped your family pray, worship, and grow in the faith.

2. We are a Lithuanian ethnic parish, not a territorial one — please don’t measure us by neighborhood maps or attendance numbers. Our members come by choice from across Michigan and Canada, many driving nearly an hour.

3. A promise stands behind us. In 1968, when the freeway forced us to relocate, the Archdiocese agreed we would keep our ethnic status if the Lithuanian community funded and sustained the parish ourselves. We did — building and consecrating this church in 1973. That promise is our foundation.

4. We are alive and young. In three years, 25+ children were confirmed and 12 made First Communion here; four couples marry this summer, each with a spouse who grew up in this parish.

5. Please consider a fourth option — one that protects not just a building, but the whole community, its organizations, and its mission for the next generation.

How to Say It

Do: lead with faith · be brief and personal · speak as “we,” a living community with a future · stay cooperative and prayerful.

Gently avoid: making it only about the building, money, or grievances · anger or blame · speaking only of the past instead of the future.

The strongest testimony is your own — in your own words. Faith first; culture is the vessel that carries it.

The Full Guidance: Preparing Your Feedback

• Begin and end with prayer.

• Many comments will naturally drift toward buildings, priests, finances, or grievances. The most persuasive feedback explains how Divine Providence helps people pray, worship, raise Catholic children, and live their faith.

• Everything else — school, scouts, culture, language, heritage — grew around that center. Faith first; culture is the vessel through which faith is passed from one generation to the next.

How to use this: This is not a script — these are themes to draw from so your voice is clear, calm, and consistent with others. Choose the points that are true for your family. Speak briefly and personally. Keep returning to prayer and faith. The strongest testimony is your own.

1. A Spirit of Prayer, Renewal, and Cooperation

Begin with faith

• Approach this process prayerfully and with trust in God’s providence.

• Frame every comment in a constructive, cooperative spirit. The goal is not conflict — it is discernment, together with our shepherds.

• Our concern is not simply preserving buildings or structures, but continuing the mission Christ entrusted to us: to know Him, worship Him, and pass on the faith.

A future rooted in faith and culture

• Express hope for the future of Divine Providence and of the wider Church.

• We want to unite faith and culture for the renewal of persons, families, and community in Christ.

• Divine Providence continues to help parishioners grow in faith, prayer, service, and Catholic identity.

Connected to the universal Church

• Connect our local experience to the wider Church.

• This very month, the 6th World Apostolic Congress on Mercy was held in Vilnius (June 7–12, 2026) — a reminder that renewal always begins with prayer, reconciliation, and active faith.

“…the mercy of God asks to be allowed into our hearts with its amazing power of renewal.” — Pope Leo XIV, message to the Congress

“Let us join our trust in the infinite mercy of God with our own personal commitment to build a more welcoming and merciful society, beginning with our families.” — Pope Leo XIV

“A city of mercy is built whenever forgiveness triumphs over resentment, whenever the vulnerable are protected, whenever those who suffer are not left to face their struggles alone, whenever truth is united with love, and whenever Christians become living witnesses of hope.” — Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius

Lithuanian Catholics remain a vibrant, contributing part of the universal Catholic Church.

2. Divine Providence Is a Unique Catholic Community

A Lithuanian national (ethnic) parish

• Divine Providence is a Lithuanian national (ethnic) parish — not a territorial one — and should not be judged by territorial-parish metrics alone.

• Its roots reach back to St. George parish, founded by Detroit’s Lithuanian Catholics in 1908. This Southfield church is the parish’s third home.

• Twice the community lost its church to Detroit’s mid-century highway construction — and twice the people rebuilt. The present church and Lithuanian cultural center were built by the parishioners themselves and consecrated on September 8, 1973.

• In 1968, when the freeway forced relocation, the Archdiocese proposed making Divine Providence an ordinary territorial parish. After meeting with some 300 parishioners, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton agreed it would keep its ethnic status — provided the Lithuanian community would fund and sustain it themselves. They did. That promise is the foundation of this community.

• The church safeguards significant Lithuanian sacred art — stained-glass windows by Vytautas K. Jonynas (including St. Casimir and the Vytis) and woodcarvings by Jurgis Daugvila. These works live above a worshiping community, not in a museum.

• The demographic and geographic assumptions used for territorial parishes simply do not describe us.

Body and soul — in our pastor’s own words

Fr. Viktoras Kriščiūnevičius, pastor of Divine Providence, wrote for the parish’s 1978 anniversary book (“Parapija atneša Kristų” — “The Parish Brings Christ”):

“The parish is the mystical Body of Christ — a spiritual yet metaphysically real, living organism. More than that, it is a divine organism. The parish is the bearer of Christ; within it is Christ.”

“Here, Lord, Your children have chosen the place for Your sanctuary — already the third place. Such is this parish’s lot: to build, to settle, to move, and to be newcomers once again.”

“To our brothers in the homeland the Lord gave the church of the catacombs and the road of the martyrs; to us He said: ‘I have transplanted you into safe and fertile soil.’”

“The church is built… but is the work finished? I would say it is only the beginning. It will not be finished until a dwelling for the Lord is built in the soul of each of us, until day by day we help one another, until we can all say: ‘Lord, we are Your people’ (Viešpatie, esame Tavo tauta).”

Geographic and cross-border reach

• Our parish serves the faithful from across Metro Detroit, other parts of Michigan, and Canada.

• Many parishioners travel significant distances to take part in parish life.

• Archdiocesan planning districts and demographic maps cannot capture an ethnic parish whose members are geographically dispersed by design.

More than a parish building

• Divine Providence is a regional center for Lithuanian Catholic life.

• It supports faith formation, cultural preservation, youth leadership, and intergenerational community — all of it anchored in worship and the sacraments.

• Our impact reaches far beyond weekly attendance figures.

3. Malda ir Tauta — Prayer and Nation

Prayer comes first

• The phrase “Malda ir Tauta” — “Prayer and Nation” — begins with prayer.

• Lithuanian Catholic communities were built first and foremost to bring people closer to God — through the sacraments, prayer, worship, and Christian community.

• Divine Providence continues exactly this mission today.

The historical role of the Church

• Throughout Lithuanian history, the Church preserved faith, dignity, language, and national identity together — never as separate things.

• Bishop Motiejus Valančius (1801–1875), Bishop of Samogitia, was one of the great figures of Lithuanian history — a pastor who understood that protecting the faith and protecting the people were one task.

• When the Russian Empire banned Lithuanian books (1864–1904), he built an underground network through the parishes: secret village schools, prayer books and readers printed across the border, and the knygnešiai (“book-carriers”) who smuggled them home. He also led a nationwide temperance movement — proof of how strong that parish network was.

• That network ran on exactly what a parish provides — faith, families, schools, and community working as one. It kept both the Catholic faith and the Lithuanian nation alive when the state tried to erase both.

• For Valančius, the prayer book was never only a prayer book — it carried prayer, the Lithuanian word, and the faith of a people, all at once. Often it was the only Lithuanian book in the home, and children learned to read from it.

• This is not distant history: Lithuania has declared 2026 the Year of Bishop Valančius, marking 225 years since his birth. The homeland is honoring this very legacy right now — the same legacy Divine Providence carries on in America.

• Under Soviet occupation, churches were seized — one great church in Kaunas became a factory — yet the Church remained a guardian of faith, conscience, and identity.

• The underground Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania survived because the diaspora printed it abroad and carried its voice back home. The free Lithuanian parish did for the persecuted Church what it could not do for itself.

The mission immigrants brought to America

• Lithuanian immigrants did not build parishes simply to celebrate Mass in Lithuanian.

• They built communities where faith and culture could be handed on to the next generation together.

• After WWII, Lithuanians in the displaced-persons camps rebuilt schools, choirs, and parishes — reprinting prayer books and readers so children born in exile received the same faith and language.

• That generation anchored this whole way of life in the parish when it crossed to America. Divine Providence is one of its homes.

• Around Lithuanian parishes grew schools, scouting, choirs, youth groups, charitable works, and lifelong friendships — every one gathered around the altar.

• Divine Providence carries this mission still.

4. A Hub for Youth, Families, and Catholic Formation

Formation beyond Sunday Mass

• The parish forms people in faith across a whole lifetime — and the faith holds the rest together.

• Divine Providence is a gathering place for organizations including the Lithuanian Saturday School, Lithuanian Scouts, Ateitis, the North American Lithuanian Athletic Association, Daughters of Lithuania, Šauliai, and choirs and cultural groups.

• These organizations hand on both the Catholic faith and Lithuanian tradition to younger generations — with the faith always at the center.

A young and growing community

• Divine Providence has many young families and active volunteers.

• In the past three years, more than 25 children have received the Sacrament of Confirmation here, and 12 have made their First Communion.

• This summer alone, four young couples are marrying and forming new Catholic families — in each, at least one spouse grew up in this very church and community.

• Through the disruption of COVID and a season without settled pastoral leadership, our families kept the faith — some receiving sacraments at neighboring Catholic parishes while continuing to support Divine Providence. That is commitment, not disengagement.

• Now families are returning. We want to renew our parish — to welcome and invite our youth back into the fold.

Share your personal experience

• If your family received sacraments at another Catholic parish while ours were unavailable, say so — and say how you stayed connected to Divine Providence.

• Name the signs of new life you have seen here: a Baptism, a First Communion, a wedding, a young family coming home.

5. Ethnic Diversity Strengthens the Church

Diversity is a Catholic strength

• The Catholic Church is universal, and it is enriched by many peoples, languages, and traditions.

• Lithuanian Catholics bring a thousand-year Catholic heritage to the Church in America.

• Preserving ethnic Catholic communities strengthens the broader mission of the Church.

What Divine Providence contributes

• Divine Providence shows how faith can be lived through culture, family, service, and intergenerational relationships — with worship at its heart.

• Our community contributes spiritual, cultural, and volunteer resources to the Archdiocese and the wider Church.

6. Community Strength and Broad Catholic Engagement

Dual parishioners strengthen the Church

• Many Divine Providence parishioners are also active in other Catholic parishes and schools.

• This reflects integration, not isolation.

• If it applies to you, name the Catholic parishes and schools your family also supports.

• Explain how Divine Providence complements and strengthens your broader Catholic involvement.

A community that extends beyond parish boundaries

• Divine Providence serves people whose Catholic lives span multiple parishes, schools, ministries, and organizations.

• This broad engagement is itself a sign of our community’s vitality and relevance.

7. Requesting a Fourth Option

The current options do not fully address our situation

• The current options focus primarily on parish structures and buildings.

• They do not fully address the future of the Lithuanian Catholic community itself.

The community must be protected

• Ask the Archdiocese to explore an additional option that protects the long-term future of the Lithuanian Catholic mission.

• Encourage solutions that preserve not only worship space, but the community, organizations, traditions, ministries, and institutions connected to the parish.

Continuity of mission

• The goal is not simply preserving the past.

• The goal is ensuring that the Lithuanian Catholic mission — prayer first, and the culture that carries it — continues for future generations.

• Any solution should recognize the unique role Divine Providence plays in sustaining both faith and culture.

8. Representation and Fair Evaluation

Our circumstances were unique

• During key phases of the Archdiocesan restructuring discussions, Divine Providence did not have stable priestly representation comparable to other parishes.

• As a result, the unique mission and circumstances of our parish may not have been fully represented.

Request careful consideration

• Ask that future decisions fully consider the distinct nature of Lithuanian national parishes.

• Request that our history, mission, geographic reach, and cultural significance be weighed alongside the traditional parish metrics.

9. End With Your Personal Witness

• Share how Divine Providence has shaped your faith.

• Explain how the parish has formed your family, your children, your friendships, and your relationship with Christ.

• Describe why this community matters to you.

• Keep the focus on prayer, faith, hope, service, and the future.

How to Say It — A Short Tone Guide

Do

• Lead with prayer and faith. Then let school, scouts, language, and culture follow as the fruit of that faith.

• Be brief and personal. One true story is worth more than ten arguments.

• Be warm and cooperative toward the Archdiocese. We are asking to be understood, not opposing our shepherds.

• Speak as “we” — a living community with a future, not a museum to be preserved.

Gently avoid

• Letting the comment become only about the building, the money, or a grievance.

• Anger or blame. It undercuts even a true point.

• Speaking only of the past. Always turn toward the future and the next generation.

• Treating culture as the point. Culture is the vessel; the faith is what it carries.

Sample Personal Statements

• Starting points only — your own words about your own family will always be stronger.

• “This is where my children learned to pray in Lithuanian and to love their faith. The school, the scouts, the choir — all of it grew around the altar.”

• “We travel nearly an hour each way, because here our faith and our heritage are one. We also support our local parish — this deepens our place in the Church, it doesn’t pull us away.”

• “Our people kept the faith through the press ban, occupation, and exile. Prayer always came first, and the culture carried it forward. Help us keep doing what we have always done.”

Complete the survey by July 31: https://form.jotform.com/261034294481152

Faith first. Culture as its vessel. The mission, for the next generation.

The most powerful feedback is personal testimony about how Divine Providence has helped you and your family encounter Christ — living the Catholic faith within a Lithuanian community.

Vilija Jurgutienė, principal, “Žiburys” Lithuanian School, Divine Providence Parish, Detroit

Over the past eighteen years, Lithuanian parishes across America have closed one after another — fifty-five of them. Draugas wrote about each one separately. And we mourned each one separately — an old church, a shrinking community, tired people. A different city, a different year, a different parish. Taken one at a time, each closing looked like a separate misfortune with its own separate cause.

But those closings can be read another way — all of them together, as one long record. That record now exists. The entire Draugas archive since 2008 has been read straight through, and every American Lithuanian parish mentioned in it has been entered into the same record — eighty-three of them. Gathered into one place, the closings stop looking like isolated events.

Out of them, one truth emerges. What decides a parish’s fate is not faith, not money, not the number of people, and not even how bravely the community fought for it. One thing decides it — whose hands hold the parish’s deed.

In Whose Name the Deed Stands

“Who does the parish belong to?” Draugas has raised a similar question before. In 2009, at the Third U.S. Lithuanian Catholic Pastoral Conference, the opening lecture was titled “Who does the church belong to?” The question is simple, and for many parishioners the answer was unexpected.

Lithuanians in America built their churches themselves — with their own hands and their own money. But the building and the land almost never belonged to those who built them. They belonged to the diocese.

This is not an accident and not a local mistake. It is a long-established decision of canon law. In 1884, the Plenary Council of Baltimore ruled that parish land and buildings belong to the local diocese, not to the parish itself. Draugas recalled the same point in 2020: “all parish real estate… must belong to the local dioceses, not to the parish.” This rule applied equally to all parishes — to those a community built and maintained with its own funds, and to all the rest. It remains in force today. And it is the root of this whole history.

What that means in everyday life was explained to Draugas in 2022 by a member of Boston’s St. Peter Parish. The community wanted to secure heritage protection for its church — and could not even do that. “We can’t even do that,” she said, “because the owners of this church are not us, but the archdiocese.”

That is why the separate closings form a single record. Of the 83 parishes gathered, 55 were closed by diocesan decision — some demolished, some merged with others. And all 55, without exception, were diocese-owned Roman Catholic parishes. This happened in various states and various dioceses — in Pennsylvania, in New England, in the Midwest. The cities differed, the decades differed, the bishops differed. The result was the same everywhere. Across eighteen years and all those closings — not a single exception.

The community built it. The community maintained it. But the diocese held the deed. And when the diocese holds the deed, the one who decides is not the one who built.

Money, Loyalty, a Fight — and Closed Anyway

One might think money saves a parish. The record shows otherwise. St. Casimir Parish in Worcester, Massachusetts, had just finished nearly a million dollars’ worth of repairs and carried no debt at the time of its closing. St. George Church in Shenandoah had accumulated about a million dollars and had more than a thousand donors. The parishioners of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn in New York offered to pay for the church roof repairs themselves. All of these parishes were closed or demolished.

The Shenandoah case shows how the “repair” justification actually works. An engineer hired by the parish itself estimated the repairs at roughly a third of a million dollars. The diocese did not accept that figure, hired its own experts — and in the reports the cost rose to several million, then to nine. The number used to justify closing a church is not set by the community. It is set by whoever holds the deed. And the million dollars the Shenandoah parish had saved was taken by the diocese after the closing.

The same method repeats elsewhere. After a fire or minor damage, the diocese often refuses to repair the building — and then “too expensive to fix” becomes the reason for closing. That is what happened to the Lithuanian parishes in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey.

One might think a fight saves a parish. But fighting was not enough either. Communities gathered signatures — one New York petition was signed by nearly four thousand people. They appealed to civil courts and to the Vatican. Even Lithuania’s presidents spoke up for the Lithuanian parishes — both Valdas Adamkus and Gitanas Nausėda. Churches were entered into state heritage registers — but even a registered church would be demolished. Even the 2002 U.S.–Lithuania heritage agreement proved powerless in these cases. Not one of these steps reversed a single closing.

This is seen most clearly in the New York Gate of Dawn case. The parishioners found a legal basis and delayed the demolition of the church for about four years. But in 2011 New York’s highest court ruled that the will of the Church hierarchy outweighs the will of the community itself. The court did not decide whether the church was worth closing. It decided only who has the right to make that decision — and the answer was not the community. Draugas summed up the ruling briefly: “This court decision is final and cannot be contested.” The church was sold to a construction company for tens of millions of dollars and demolished.

These parishes had both faith and loyalty. St. George’s in Shenandoah was supported by more than a thousand donors. Boston’s St. Peter Parish was sustained by Lithuanians since 1898. The people did not abandon their churches. The communities did everything within their power. And still it was not enough, because one thing was never in their hands — ownership itself.

Surviving Once Is Not Yet Safety

Sometimes a parish withstands a restructuring. But the record shows what such survival really means.

Seven Lithuanian parishes survived one wave of restructuring — and then another reached them. Detroit’s St. Anthony Parish escaped closing in 1989, when Cardinal Edmund Szoka decided to rebuild it after a fire. Closed in 2013. Omaha’s St. Anthony Parish weathered the danger around 2008. Closed in 2014. Waterbury’s St. Joseph Parish withstood a 2002 merger and had even begun a real renewal. Closed in 2023. The same befell Philadelphia’s St. Casimir, Philadelphia’s St. George, and New Britain’s St. Andrew parishes — closed or having lost their Lithuanian character. And Maspeth’s Transfiguration Parish, which withstood a 2019 merger, received its closing letter in 2025. Its fate is still being decided.

Each of those parishes survived differently — one saved by a post-fire decision to rebuild, another by a sympathetic clergyman’s intervention, a third by a successfully resisted merger. But none of those rescues was final.

In a parish that remains in the diocese’s hands, two clocks are ticking. One is the community’s: people age, the young move away, fewer faces at Sunday Mass. The other is the diocese’s: review after review, restructuring after restructuring. The community can slow its own clock — welcome new families, educate the children, renovate the church. It cannot stop the diocese’s clock.

There are also parishes that withstood not one review but two or three. But they too remain inside the diocese. As long as the diocese holds the deed, every new review will, sooner or later, reach them as well.

And the two clocks are unequal. The community must win every time. The diocese needs to win only once, because the review always comes back. To survive one restructuring is to win time. But time is not yet safety.

The Only Ones No One Closed

Within the whole record there are also parishes that no bishop closed. They show the same truth from the other side.

This is seen most clearly in Pennsylvania’s coal country. According to Draugas, 31 Lithuanian parishes once operated there. Twenty-nine of them were Roman Catholic, and today all of them are closed. What survived was Scranton’s Divine Providence church. It survived because from the very beginning it was an independent parish — governed not by a Roman Catholic diocese but by the community itself. No bishop can close it, because it belongs to no bishop.

Scranton also shows where that difference came from. Early in the last century, when it became clear that the community that had built a church did not govern it, some Pennsylvania Lithuanians did what the Poles had done a little earlier — they separated from Rome. In 1914 they founded their own Church, the Lithuanian National Catholic Church. In faith and rites it is Catholic, but it does not recognize the authority of the pope and does not belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Its parishes belong to the parishioners themselves.

That difference can be seen in Scranton, in two churches side by side. The Lithuanians there first built a Roman Catholic church; the diocese took it over through the courts. Then some of the Lithuanians withdrew and built their own alongside it — one that no bishop could close or sell. One church today is closed. The other still stands. In 2017 Draugas wrote: “And the ‘independent’ Lithuanian Catholics… still gather every Sunday in their own church.”

That difference can also be seen through one city, in one year. In 2002, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, two Lithuanian parishes came to an end. The Roman Catholic church was closed by the archdiocese, which took its property. The independent parish was closed by the community itself — by its own decision — and it kept the money it received for its own cemetery. The same city, the same year, the same shrinking community. The only difference was in whose hands the decision lay.

Montreal shows the same. Quebec law establishes that the owner of a church is the parish itself, not the diocese. Both of Montreal’s Lithuanian parishes survived.

The difference is shown even by an example unrelated to Catholics. The Lithuanian Lutheran “Tėviškė” parish bought its church in 1957 and has made every decision about it itself ever since. What decides is not the community’s faith. What decides is who governs the building.

Everywhere a parish survived for the long term, the same feature repeats. The church was governed not by the diocese but by the community itself.

Detroit — a Step No One Has Yet Taken

Detroit’s Divine Providence Parish has not yet received a closing letter. It is not being closed. It has been included in the Detroit Archdiocese’s current restructuring. In March 2026 the archdiocese prepared a separate restructuring book for each parish. This matters, because the record shows a clear line. After the closing letter, no parish inside a diocese ever saved itself — not with money, not with courts, not with a fight. The only window that ever decided anything is the window before that letter. Detroit today is still in that window. And it matters for one more reason — Divine Providence is the last Lithuanian Catholic parish in the city. The others are already closed.

The record also shows what that window means. Through it, one can still do the only thing that truly protects a parish — move the deed into the community’s hands.

The Lithuanians of Scranton and Lawrence reached that point their own way: a century ago they separated from Rome and founded a separate Church. But that is their history, not this article’s proposal. What is discussed here is not how to leave the Catholic Church, but how a Catholic parish can hold its own home itself.

A question remains that the record cannot yet answer: whether a parish can stay in the Catholic Church and at the same time hold the deed itself. The record also shows where the limits lie. Seven Lithuanian parishes withstood one wave of restructuring — then another reached them. Only a few restructurings can be withstood.

One of the answers the record raises is to buy the church building back from the diocese. In all eighteen years, not one Lithuanian Roman Catholic parish did so. The idea was raised only once — in 2008, when the Lithuanian Foundation offered to lend parishes money to buy back their buildings. No one carried the offer out. A buyback is possible only when the owner holding the deed agrees to sell, and for a diocese that is itself shrinking and has its own financial troubles, selling a half-empty church in a good location to a construction company is often more profitable than selling it to the Lithuanian community. This is not malice — it is simple property arithmetic.

But what has not yet appeared in the record can still appear in it. Detroit’s Divine Providence Parish is today still in the window before the closing letter. It still has what it will not have later — time. Time to ask, time to learn from history, time to decide together.

While the Community Still Decides

Eighty-three parishes. Fifty-five closings. Eighteen years. The whole record says one thing: a parish’s fate was decided not by faith, not by money, not by the number of people, not by the courage of the fight. It was decided by ownership. The parishes governed by the community itself survived. The parishes governed by the diocese were, sooner or later, closed.

That 2009 lecture raised three examples of hope. The property of Brockton’s St. Casimir Parish passed not to the diocese but to a Lithuanian mission. Manhattan’s Gate of Dawn parishioners were weighing whether they could legally reopen the church. A court in Spokane had ruled that the bishop is merely the custodian of church property, not its owner. Seventeen years later, all three ended the same way. The Brockton Lithuanian community dispersed. Manhattan’s Gate of Dawn was handed to the diocese by the court in 2011 — the church demolished. In Spokane, legal hope saved not a single Lithuanian parish.

This is not a sad story about what is inevitable. It is knowledge of what can still be done while it is not too late. Divine Providence Parish is still alive. The Lithuanian language still sounds in it; the Lithuanian school, the choir, the archive, the dance ensembles, the scout troops, the ateitininkai, the Kovas sports club, the Lithuanian Daughters, the Lithuanian Community all still operate there. And while the closing letter has not yet come, the decision is still held by the community itself.

In 2025, in Draugas, Lithuania’s Consul General in New York, Dovydas Špokauskas, said something simple: “what is built by Lithuanians must, legally, remain with Lithuanians.” The churches built by Lithuanian hands already belong to Lithuanians — through labor, sacrifice, memory. By the deed — not yet.

The community must hear the question “Who does the parish belong to?” as addressed to itself. And answer it itself — while it still can answer itself.

This article is the first of several. It raised the question of what decides a parish’s fate: who holds the deed. The articles that follow will ask what the parish means to its community and how to keep it alive.