St. Elizabeth Roman Catholic Church is a small brick building on Grant Street with Romanesque arches and a tower. Its bold red bricks are now weathered, their corners rounded by passing time. Two evergreens flank the stairs leading to the front doors and a school building of newer brick sits behind the church, empty.

Inside, the floors creak along with the pews whenever someone sits or stands. The clips on the back of the pews can no longer hold the missalettes that provide the hymns for Mass. The speakers that carry the words of the services, in the Hungarian language of its parishioners, rival the sound quality of an old transistor radio.

St. Elizabeth is the last Hungarian Catholic Church in Buffalo, and one of the few that still have an ethnic Mass in their parishioners’ native tongue. To the remainder of the Hungarian immigrants in Buffalo who still attended the Mass every Sunday, it represents their pride and their culture. It is a link to their homeland and a reminder of their past.

Now, over 100 years after St. Elizabeth was built, it is set to close.

“This was built by Hungarians 100 years ago. There was a lot of effort, and a lot of very poor people who put their money together to build this church,” says Dr. Peter W. Forgach, a St. Elizabeth parishioner who brings Hungarian exchange students to Mass, offering them a cultural support group during their educational stay. “It is a shame to have any church go, but this serves an ethnic community. With the importance of diversity in this country, it is a shame they are closing it. ”

The Buffalo diocese has decided that by the end of June, St. Elizabeth will merge with a larger parish at the Church of the Assumption, less than a mile away on Amherst Street. There, services will be in English.

The closing of St. Elizabeth is part of the first phase of the Buffalo diocese’s restructuring. Four parishes and 14 elementary schools are closing by the end of the year. Rev. Edward U. Kmiec, bishop of Buffalo, is calling it a Journey in Faith and Grace, a “strategic planning and spiritual revitalization process.” This leaves the Hungarian speakers of Western New York feeling a little left out.

“They don’t call this a closing, they call this a merger,” says church member Eva Tamoga. Tamoga, who has been a St. Elizabeth’s parishioner since 1979, says closing the diocese’s lone Hungarian church is unfair.

“I don’t think it is right that they take care of half of us. Half is English and half is Hungarian, the English have somewhere to go and we don’t. I don’t think it’s fair to the Hungarian community.”

alks of St. Elizabeth’s closing started back in March, 2000 when the parish’s last resident priest, Rev. John Skrapits, passed away. Since then, Rev. Richard Jedrzejewski, pastor of Assumption parish, has filled in as the parish administrator and part-time priest. He gives the 9 a.m. Mass in English, while 83-year-old Rev. Ladislas F. Juhasz, gives the 11 a.m. Mass in Hungarian.

“They have been talking about this many times,” Father Jedrzejewski explains. “I think they kind of understood that when Father Skrapits died, that would be the last of the permanent pastors they would have. And that the parish would close altogether.”

When it comes down to making the tough decision of closing or merging a parish, Kevin Keenan, the communications director of the diocese of Buffalo, explains, “You have to look at a number of factors.” The most publicized ones are a lack of priests, funds, and attendance. According to an interactive map on the The Buffalo News website, there are around 80 churches in the diocese that share priests, including St. Elizabeth.

However, Hungarian speakers at St. Elizabeth feel that they might be the exception to this red flag. “We understand that there are no priests. But our priest is an 83-year-old Jesuit priest who only comes to say the Hungarian Mass, and we don’t take that priest away from anybody,” Eva Tamoga states. “He would be retired if he didn’t say the Hungarian Mass.”

St. Elizabeth’s attendance is another issue that caught the eye of the diocese. There are roughly 150 families registered with the parish, and on a given Sunday around 50-60 parishioners are present at the 11 a.m. Mass. Many of the Hungarian settlers in the Buffalo area are professionals and have started successful careers, allowing them to move out to more affluent areas of WNY.

Most of the parishioners are quick to agree that the majority of their population has moved out of the city and away from the church. But since it is the last Hungarian church in WNY, many still make the commute back into the city every Sunday.

“A lot of them are still supporting the church even if they do not go there,” states Dr. Forgach, who commutes from Williamsville. Eva Tamoga and her husband Ishvan commute from Amherst to hear Mass in Hungarian.

Despite the logical explanations and emotional reasons the parishioners of St. Elizabeth present to keep the church open, it has not stopped the diocese from ruling the parish as fading.

“Saint Elizabeth last year, in 2006, had one baptism, three conformations, no marriages, and four deaths,” Keenan says. “You can see just from the sacramental information, which is one of the things taken into consideration, that there is not a lot going on at that parish. The average weekend attendance at their Mass is 125.”

Keenan said that it doesn’t make sense to keep a small church like St. Elizabeth open when there is a much larger church, Assumption, which is close and seems to be flourishing.

n 1906, the cornerstone of the first Hungarian church in WNY was laid. On it is Hungarian text, reading, “Our Celestial Patroness, Saint Elizabeth, as long as there remains a single stone of this church, will pray for us.” In the following year, 1907, over 60,000 Hungarian immigrants came to the United States, about half being Catholic and a large portion settling in Buffalo. Another surge was seen after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Ishvan and Eva Tamoga have been attending St. Elizabeth Church ever since they were sponsored by Catholic Charities to emigrate from Hungary in 1979. Ishvan is now retired and working part-time taking care of the church’s maintenance. Eva sings during the Hungarian Mass and plays the organ. Together, they attend the church regularly and participate in a Hungarian social group to stay connected with their culture.

Ishvan walks around St. Elizabeth’s every Sunday making sure everything is in place. He takes pride in maintaining his parish. He passes through the pews replacing the English literature with Hungarian and greets everyone he sees with a smile. The 9 a.m. English Mass is over and Ishvan anxiously checks the parking lot for Eva, as she is on her way to play the organ.

Also among the disgruntled is Tibor Baranski, Dr. Forgach’s stepfather. This Budapest native arrived after the Hungarian Revolution and is often described as a freedom fighter for the work he did during World War II. During the Holocaust, Baranski is noted for saving the lives of over 3,000 Hungarian Jews. He responds modestly to someone who is impressed, “You shouldn’t brag about yourself. You should only brag about Jesus because he is the one that gave you the strength.”

The congregation is like a welcoming family. Ishvan will gladly take time out to show visitors the Hungarian literature that is in the church along with the beautiful stained glass that is inscribed in Hungarian. Father Juhasz even makes the effort to contact the new faces in the parish. Even after you tell him you are not Hungarian, he’ll say, “You’re more then welcome to stay.”

he type of church downsizing taking place throughout the diocese of Buffalo is not new to the Roman Catholic Church. New York and Boston are about a year into the process of restructuring. It has sometimes turned ugly, with parishioners being arrested for participating in sit-ins to try and stop their churches from closing.

“Regardless if it is an ethnic church or not, it is difficult to close any parish. People have devoted their lives to these churches,” Keenan says. “They have spent many significant moments of their lives there. They were baptized there, they made their first communion, they were confirmed, they were married there, and they have had family members buried out of these churches.”

The Hungarian parishioners at St. Elizabeth have come up with two ideas to save their parish or, at the very least, keep their Mass in Hungarian. Eva Tamoga is forming a petition from what is left of the Hungarian community and is planning to present it to Bishop Kmiec. Dr. Forgach has another thought.

“We are thinking about making some financial calculations to find out how much it will cost to keep the church open,” he explains. “Then hopefully there will be enough pledges to cover the expenses for each year. Then we will go to the Bishop and ask him, if we are self-sufficient, to keep the church open.”

For Baranski, who was a prisoner for five years for “anti-communist actions,” the church closings seem petty. “In Hungary, we had no heat in our churches,” he chuckles. The financial and maintenance issues are only speed bumps in Baranski’s eyes.

Baranski’s focus is the same as when he moved here almost fifty years ago: to live a free life while holding onto his ethnicity. “America is not a melting pot,” he says. “America is a flower garden, different flowers in peace with their own heritage that could enrich the culture of the United States.”

As for now, the decision to have a Hungarian Mass is in the hands of Father Richard from Assumption church.

“We really have not been doing ethnic Masses,” explains Father Richard. “This was a Polish-American community and we do not have a Polish Mass. We are not planning on a Hungarian Mass at this point.”

It is a hard reality to swallow for the WNY Hungarian community. They are like a family, as Eva Tamoga will tell you. One with a sacrifice they are told needs to be made.

“As bishop Kmiec said, ‘we would be remised if we were not making these decisions,’” Keenan says. “We need to make sure we have strong parishes and that we were properly using the limited resources that we have.”