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Nanticoke’s St. Stanislaus to shut doors Sunday as part of consolidation.
Frank Mrufchinski stands next to a St. Stanislaus Church window paid for by he and his sister to honor his father.
Clark Van Orden/The Times Leader
NANTICOKE – It was founded by Polish immigrants fleeing a Prussian occupation that barred them from speaking their own language.
It grew big enough to help support a school, a convent and an orphanage – and to split in 1894 when an angry faction of 2,400 parishioners left to form another parish down the road, Holy Trinity.
At the venerable age of 135, St. Stanislaus parish in Nanticoke is the fourth oldest Polish Roman Catholic church in the nation, and the oldest in Luzerne County – a distinction that will disappear as the doors are shut for good June 6.
“It has such a history,” long-time member Frank Mrufchinski said as he sat in a pew on a recent weekday afternoon, sun streaming through the stained glass. “People don’t even know what we’re losing.”
St. Stanislaus is just one of scores of churches being closed in the Diocese of Scranton, but Mrufchinski feels the age and saga of St. Stan’s makes the loss particularly hard for him and some others in the parish. He feels it’s also the end of an important part of the county’s history.
“I believe in obedience to the pope and to the bishop, and I wish Bishop Joseph Bambera the best,” Mrufchinski stressed, “But it’s painful. I never thought I’d live to see this kind of day.”
Understandable, considering the church has been a fierce survivor, according to a history written on its centennial in 1975 by the late Jule Znaniecki, a Nanticoke native and local historian who lived to be 100 herself.
St. Stanislaus survived through two world wars that saw Poland overrun by conquerors – the church’s pastor was visiting his native land in 1939 and barely escaped via Budapest shortly before the Nazi invasion. It survived a flu epidemic that led to the establishment of St. Stanislaus Orphanage in 1918, which, while supported by many parishes, got its biggest boost from St. Stan’s.
It survived not only the 1894 rift that led to a new parish, but a 1912 dispute over who should be pastor that led to a Catholic “interdict,” or closing of the church, for more than a year.
Despite such setbacks, St. Stanislaus grew to well over 2,000 parishioners at its apex, spawned multiple religious societies, hosted a Boy Scouts of America troop, launched one of the earliest annual church bazaars in the area and boasted a choir that won awards, Mrufchinski said.
He concedes the numerous church closings are “partly our fault.
“Too many of us are caught up in the material world and consumerism. We don’t encourage our children to enter the religious life. We’re not giving enough for the upkeep of the churches. The issues are so complex.”
But Mrufchinski respectfully suggests a parish that thrived for the better part of 13 decades should get more consideration before being shuttered. “A church is here over 125 years, and they do a study and in a year they make a decision?” The church, he notes, was spruced up 10 years ago for the parish’s 125th anniversary, including new windows – one, in the choir loft, was donated by he and his sister in memory of their father.
Along with a rich history, St. Stanislaus boasts a massive, ornately carved pulpit with an uncertain fate. “That pulpit is priceless,” Mrufchinski said. The parish saw more than two dozen of its members go on to become priests or religious sisters. Mrufchinski himself is a lay brother of the Franciscan Order, devoted to a life of prayer and service, and earning the right to be buried in the order’s garb.
When the diocesewide closings were unveiled, Luzerne County faced the loss of about half its churches. Nanticoke was slated to lose five of its six. St. Stanislaus joined six diocesan churches that filed formal appeals to reverse the closing decision, but the appeal was rejected.
Mrufchinski said the pain from the closing was more than he was willing to take, and that he recently joined St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Wilkes-Barre, where other members of his family belong. But his heart still clearly longs for the area’s first Polish Roman Catholic Church, a parish that arguably exemplifies how much the faith impacted the county over the last century – and how much those closing parishes impacted the tens of thousands of individuals watching the doors lock.
“It’s part of your life. All those years,” he said. “It’s a part of us.”