Abandoned Greek Catholic Church in Chicago with a Caving Roof and an Open Safe

The first thing I said walking in was that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a church like this posted in Chicago. The roof is caving in, the building howls when the wind moves through it, and there are still papers hung up from what looks like the last service.

This is a former Greek Catholic church, and the video description says there is no information on why it was shut down. The exact location stays off this page. I forgot my flashlight, so I borrowed one.

What we found

The sanctuary comes first. There is a layer of dust over everything, which I’m guessing came down from the roof. The pews are still lined up, chairs are still set out, and the papers are still hung up. Someone had clearly been in here before us. The howling I first took for wind turned out to be birds in the ceiling, and they scared me.

The light was low enough that the footage goes almost black for a stretch.

On one wall there is writing I took for Hebrew, and a banner with a bunch of grapes on it. There is a nice little drum kit, a piano, and pews all in one view. A closet nearby held more band equipment.

In the same closet was the thing I was not expecting. It looked like a golden safe. It took two of us to move it. It needs a key, and I had no idea whether the key was anywhere in the room. Then it turned out to be open. Somebody else got to it first.

The stained glass is still in the side windows, and there is glitter in the walls. We found some maintenance supplies in one room. Then we had to choose between the top floor and the basement, and we went up first. There was a wire right at the start. The floor leans, there is a hole in it, and we did not spend long there. There was also a bird up there, which I decided was the culprit for all the noise.

The basement is worse. Mold, windows open to the weather, and a bigger safe than the first one. We tried that one too. It was locked. There were dead birds down there too, and I am not putting that on camera. A rubber stamp and a printing plate were lying on the floor, with reversed text about a golf outing and a ball game at White Sox Park.

At the far end was what must have been the dining area. There were motion sensors in the doorway, and the rule was just don’t touch them. Past that is a kitchen with the grill still in it and all the china left behind. A boiling room I didn’t care much about. An old computer. Then the video ends.

Why places like this end up empty

Nothing in the video explains why this church closed, so this section is about church buildings in Chicago in general. The best numbers are for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, which is a different body from a Greek Catholic parish, but the pressures overlap.

Preservation Chicago reported in 2021 that the archdiocese had closed about 110 churches and parishes within city limits through about 2019, and that around 57 of those buildings were later demolished. Since 2020, its Renew My Church program has covered more than 88 more parishes scheduled to consolidate, merge or close. In 1980 the archdiocese had about 447 parishes.

The reasons the archdiocese gave were a shortage of priests, falling attendance and enrollment, and costly repairs that had been put off for years. Preservation Chicago says closed buildings are often left vacant instead of maintained, which lets them deteriorate, and that high asking prices make it hard for other congregations to take them over. Some are sold, some are converted to community centers or housing, and some are torn down.

A church that sits through that long enough ends up with a roof like this one, and pews still waiting under the dust. The grill is still in the kitchen, and all the china is still there.