PORT CARBON, Pa. — A grand reopening was held in Schuylkill County for a neighborhood church closed by the diocese.
“Just looking around at the windows, the stations, just things that remind me of what was here before. It brought back a lot of good memories,” Steve Pavlic said.
He lives near his childhood church in Port Carbon, St. Stephen's. This was the first time he's been back in years.
“I went to St. Stephen's school, grade school, grades one through eight, and I was an altar boy here. My mother, 'till the time she couldn't anymore, would walk here, up the hill. If she were alive today, she would be here,” Pavlic added.
After the Diocese of Allentown closed the church in 2020, Maureen Challenger and her sister spent the next two years raising money to reopen the church that was so special to their family.
Challenger's nonprofit, The Society of St. Stephen's, now owns the chapel and is dedicated to preserving its history.
“We just didn't want to see it be used for a non-religious purpose which was basically supposed to happen,” she said.
St. Stephen's was built before the Civil War, and the church is now 175 years old.
“You know we have historic church artifacts like the stained glass windows, and we wanted to see this remain a sacred space,” Challenger added.
Now called Saint Stephen's chapel, the church is no longer part of the Diocese of Allentown.
But it still holds mass on special occasions.
Edward Connolly is a retired priest and serves as the Society of Saint Stephen's society chaplain.
On this day, they celebrated the 175th anniversary of the dedication of the church.
Steve Pavlic expects this to be the first of many times he returns to his childhood church in Port Carbon.
“We probably will attend some of the functions they have here, and we will definitely support financially as we can. We definitely will support, it's a great thing,” he said.
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