Description
In order to service Polish families who lived more than a mile away from St. Stanislaus Kostka, the main polish church at the time, St. Hedwig Parish was first created starting 1887. The Polish population was growing quite rapidly at the time, and the Polish community was very tight knit and religiously secure in their ways—thus, another solely Polish church had to be built to tend to the growing needs of the community. In 1887, having purchased the city block surrounded by Webster Ave., Hoyne Ave., Lyndale St., and Hamilton Ave., Father Vincent Barzynki, CR, pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka, supervised the construction of the soon to be church and school combination. Under Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan, St. Hedwig was dedicated on December 4, 1888— Reverend Joseph Barzynski, brother of Father Vincent Barzynski, was appointed the first resident pastor of St. Hedwig Parish.
After some time of growing parish membership, in 1894 Father Barzynski appointed Rev. Anthony Kozlowski as an assistant—which spurred a violent halt in St. Hedwig’s flourishing as a parish. Father Kozlowski went into his position as assistant with goals such as causing a disturbance in the parish to convince church authorities to let him take charge of the parish. Unhappy parishioners soon begun a conflict with the parish because of this, and after a violent protest in the parish rectory on February 7, 1895, Archbishop Feehan closed St. Hedwig Church, and the ongoing construction on the building was halted. However, on June 23 of 1895, St. Hedwig was reopened, Archbishop Feehan appointed Rev. Eugene Piechowski, CR, as pastor, and thus construction proceeded once more. The architect for the construction of the church as it stands today was Chicago architect Adolphus Druiding, and it was the last building he ever designed. The parish is characterized as Polish Baroque or Renaissance Revival, like many of the other Polish churches of that time in Chicago. On the façade, St. Hedwig looks like a very quiet and humble church. Containing no ornate decoration, it has a Bedford stone base with a light brick upper body, entrance with four Doric columns that hold up a stone balustrade above, triple portal with larger central doors, four ionic columns on the level of the balustrade, simple pediment, and quite small, square towers topped with matching cupolas. The interior of the church, however, is very ornate in its decoration—multiple flecks of gold greet the eye, and the entirety of the interior has paintings upon the walls (although completed by artist John A. Mallin in 1938).
The new and improved St. Hedwig Church was dedicated on October 27, 1901, at a completed cost of $160,000. Father Piechowski’s residency restored faith in the parish and reduced the animosity that parishioners had towards the parish from the dramatic and violent time of Father Joseph Barzynski and Father Kozlowski. Under Piechowski’s pastorage, religious life was restored, and by 1905, parish membership grew to 1,500 families (from the 300 before the church was closed in Feb. 1895). Today, St. Hedwig still stands as an historic parish with a colorful history of events leading up to its 1901 dedication.
Current Location: 2226 N. Hoyne Ave.
Source
Harry C. Koenig, ed., “St. Hedwig Church,” in Harry Koenig, ed., A History of the Parishes of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Vol. 1 (Chicago: The Archdiocese of Chicago, 1980).
Dennis R. McNamara and James Morris, Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2005), 62-64.
George Lane and Algimantas Kezys, Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage (Chicago, Ill: Loyola University Press, 1981), 81.
