Join us for a relaxing, family-friendly evening of classical cello, piano and vocal music at Most Holy Redeemer Church!Reverberant acoustics, a beautiful space, and your favorite masterworks by J.S. Bach, Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, Manuel De Falla, and more make for an unforgettable evening.
Please join us for an evening of classical music to support an important cause! This concert will include works by Ukrainian classical composers Mykola Lysenko and Myroslav Skoryk, plus others. Performers will include opera singer Elena Heimur, violinist Lea Lang, the choir of St. George's Ukrainian Catholic church, and pianist Clara Bartz.
Free admission; suggested donation $25. All proceeds go to Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA). Donations may be made in-person at the event...The concert starts at 7 p.m. at the church, 173 E. Third St. between Avenue A and Avenue B.
For Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as well as other Latinos, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a powerful symbol of devotion, identity, and patriotism. Her image inspires artists, activists, feminists and the faithful.
EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these photos from the celebration...
Three trucks will provide FREE a grocery box, a produce box and the third truck will provide a gallon of fortifying milk. Distribution will be in front of Most Holy Redeemer Church ... on a first come, first served basis, while supplies last. No pre-registration is required.
Please observe social distancing and wear a face covering. We're looking forward to seeing our neighbors!
In collaboration with our friends at Catholic Charities of New York, we have arranged for some much-needed relief for our community! One truck will provide FREE nutritious groceries and the other truck will provide fortifying milk.
The distribution will be in front of Most Holy Redeemer Church, 173 E. 3rd St, August 7, from 10 a.m. - noon, and is on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. No pre-registration is required. Please observe social distancing and wear a face covering.
We're looking forward to seeing our neighbors!
Historic Most Holy Redeemer and Nativity Church will celebrate its origins in the German immigrant community with a special mass in honor of St. Nicholas.
It will be a traditional Latin Solemn High Mass including Gregorian Chant propers and featuring Hayden’s Nikolaimesse (St. Nicholas Mass), under the direction of James Wetzel, director of music at the Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer. The mass starts 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 5.
"While we commend the church for the good they are doing, we remain opposed to the church disposing of properties in gentrifying neighborhoods that are in danger of luxury condo development," said Val Orselli, a project director with Cooper Square Community Land Trust. "The church has not merely an obligation to do good but it also has an obligation not to do harm."
The land trust proposed a price of $18.5 million. Of that amount, $5 million would be paid to the archdiocese upon closing. The remainder, which would use a combination of federal tax credits and state and local funding, would be paid in installments over a 20-year period.
David Brown, the church’s director of real estate, told Val Orselli [a project director with Cooper Square Community Land Trust] he would get back to him.
Several months later, Orselli returned to Brown's office. In a show of support, representatives of city councilmembers Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin, as well as the Manhattan regional representative from Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office, accompanied him.
But Brown was unmoved. The offer was insufficient, he told them. Among the sticking points was the land trust’s inability to pay upfront.
“He told me, ‘A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow,'” Orselli recalled.
Orselli took the rejection as a sign that the church, a tax-exempt institution, was more interested in getting top dollar for its property, which has been estimated as being worth as much as $50 million.
“I was a bit naive,” he said. Referring to the land trust’s pitch to do something with the property that was aligned with papal doctrines, he added, “They couldn’t care less.”
Amato ... said former parishioners proposed to purchase the decommissioned church for $18 million to develop low-income, senior and homeless family housing.
The alternative plan is to sell the property for a reported $50 million and build a luxury residential development, which Amato said would be a "sordid use" of a once-sacred edifice.
Although not all of the residents in the area were parishioners, decommissioned churches like the Church of the Nativity continue to be an integral part of "the fabric of a neighborhood," Amato said.
"Those are the kind of things that are destroyed by global investment firms, but they shouldn't be destroyed by the archdiocese; they shouldn't be behaving the same way," Amato said.
The proposal to convert the parish into low-income housing would greatly benefit the residents near the church, Amato said. Predominantly made up of Catholics of Puerto Rican descent, residents find themselves not only "displaced by housing issues, evictions, rising land costs but now they're being displaced by their own Catholic Church, by the archdiocese."
"So, the idea of selling this property — that is so associated with the Catholic Worker [Movement] and advocacy for the poor — for $50 million is astounding on so many levels."
Joseph Zwilling, communications director for the New York Archdiocese, acknowledged that several proposals for the site were reviewed, including the proposal submitted by the church's former parishioners.
Nevertheless, he said, "the parish needs to receive fair market value for the property so that the parish and the archdiocese can continue to meet the pastoral, charitable, educational — and housing — needs of the people we serve."
Zwilling also explained that the proposed sale of the property "is by and for the parish, not the archdiocese."
He also said that proceeds from the sale of the Church of the Nativity, which was merged in 2015 with a neighboring parish — Most Holy Redeemer — would not go to the archdiocese, but the parish.
We are now a new parish in the eyes of the Church and the civil government. Our official name is The Roman Catholic Church of Most Holy Redeemer and Nativity. However, we can opt to change our name. It can be something totally different — for example — St. John Paul II, St. Theresa of Calcutta, etc. If you have any suggestions, please put your suggestion and why you want this name in writing, and leave it at the office for Fr. Sean McGillicuddy before, Friday, October 21.
"A modification of the name could imperil and erode its long-standing identity and history ... it is a cherished institution that has no reason to be known as anything other than Most Holy Redeemer."
"He never consulted the parish or its council on matters that affect the interior or architectural cosmetics of the church — such as the four statues of Mary now inserted in the churches facade, for example. The interior is being desecrated: florescent spot lights at the shrines, thrift shop prayer stools and electric candle alters cluttering the alters. And he is having the larger-than-life hand-carved wooden statues (works of masterful European craftsmanship) painted over with metallic paint. What were once works of art now look like cheap trinkets and chachkas.
"The church ... belongs to history, the community... the Lower East Side."
Daylight Saving Time (United States) 2016 begins at 2:00 AM on Sunday, March 13
...and ends at 2:00 AM on Sunday, November 6
