www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Photo Gallery SS Peter & Paul Orthodox Cathedral Detroit

The Russian Orthodox parish of my youth. Love this church. It wasn't a cathedral then. The cathedral was near Joseph Campeau. It was dedicated to All Saints of Russia, then All Saints. A beautiful church too. I wonder what they did with the property.

SS. Peter and Paul's had its centennial in 2007. I tried unsuccessfully to get a copy of the 100th Anniversary book. I do have earlier histories of the church.

Beautiful Church. What is the history? Did they relocate?

A great many Orthodox and Catholic churches relocated out of Detroit. St. Nicholas recently did, it was the last Ruthenian parish to leave the city limits of Detroit. I believe all the Byzantine Catholic Praishes in the Detroit area are all located in the suburbs now.

One of the first churches founded by Russian immigrants in the early 1900s, the original community was a mix of Russian populations: Galician, Bukovinan, Carpatho Russian, Little Russian, Vohlynian, a few Cossacks, White Russians and a minority of Great Russians. It was truly an All Russian parish. In politics, the old immigration tended to Socialist sympathies which translated into Labor Union support and Democrat party membership. The first Russian American professionals came from this parish, doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, entrepreneurs, etc. Hence, this parish was greatly transformed by the cultural shifts of the 1960s as intermarriages became prevalent. It was one of the first parishes to begin introducing English services, but at the same time, did retain some Slavonic services. It was one of the first parishes to go to the "new calendar," but for a time had something available for those who celebrated on the old. At its height, it offered daily services and liturgy 2 - 3 times a week as well as Confession, the parish had weekly suppers and talks, had an excellent adult catechesis and sunday school program, sponsored summer picnics with speakers at the long defunct Russian Farm outside of Holly, MI, had its own credit union and its own parochial school. But with the decline of the city of Detroit and White Flight, it gradually diminished in significance and outreach. Curiously, those very same people who had pushed the pews and calendar reform and whatnot relocated to the Livonia Holy Transfiguration parish which they founded anew.

By the 1990s, SS Peter and Paul had taken a turn away from all its former vitality and began to become a nominal parish.

With the attraction of other non Russian communities to Orthodoxy and some participation of the "new immigration" in the 2000s, a renewal began, and may God grant the parish recover its former prominence.

The All Saints Cathedral was liquidated by the OCA in the 2000s because the congregation had wished to return to the Old Calendar. These people tried to build a church under ROCOR's omophorion in the suburbs, but it is unclear what came of it. So the Cathedra of All Saints Cathedral was transferred to SS Peter and Paul in the 2000s and the cathedral was closed. What became of that property is a mystery to me. It is a historically significant temple, for it was the site of the 1924 All American Sobor.

The post WWII immigration was not always fully welcomed at SS Peter & Paul, for politics very much undergirded the attitudes of and divided immigrations. There was a generally level of distrust of "Ukrainians," "Vlasovites," "DPs," "Tsaristas" there, and they felt these people were pawns of various American conservative/anti-Communist groups. Gradually, that was significantly overcome, but only after these attitudes sparked the foundings of multiple other parishes (and jurisdictions) in the area. This attitude also eventually fuelled a stalemate and then a recovery for the Greek Catholic communities who had hitherto been returning to Orthodoxy steadily.

The church is known for its beautiful frecoed interior, reflecting a very real representation of pre Revolutionary Russia. It influenced other parishes in Detroit in its layout and general beauty. When one goes into SS Peter and Paul, the embrace of Holy Russia overcomes him. The Spirit is clearly there and it compels one to love, peace and tranquility. No matter the storms outside (or inside), in that parish the world seems to be being made better and transfigured. Few parishes are that profoundly moving (The ROCOR San Francisco Cathedrals of the Joy of All Who Sorrow, etc.). There is just something totally authentic and patently holy about the SS Peter and Paul experience.

SS Peter and Paul also sponsored OCA missionary activity, primarly in the lower peninsula, with grants, service books, vestments, Church Vessels, etc. from the 1960s into the early 1990s.

SS Peter and Paul used to co sponsor the Metro Detroit Russian festival as well as certain balalaika choirs and other performances of Russian culture. It had one of the most renowned Orthodox choirs in the Midwest for a time, which executed difficult composer pieces by Tchaikovsky, Lvov, Arkhangelsky, et al. with a certain level of mastery. One of the most beautiful and short lived things they attempted was a children's choir. And they had a simply wonderful tradition of "starring" neighborhood Orthodox/Russian (including "Ukrainian") homes during Christmas times. Their bake sales and book sales were renowned. Their eventual outreach to immigrants (and some sponsorships) with campaigns of literacy and Orthodox formation were heroic. Their Russian school was once quite good and they were once known to put on an occasional play based on a work of Tolstoy or Turgenev or Dostoevsky.

And for a time, when Orthodox baptismal crosses weren't readily available and icons in America were not always easy to be found, SS Peter and Paul maintained a giftshop in the area which marrying couples and those baptizing children frequented. It was a Mecca of sorts for the ALL Russian Metropolitan Detroit community.

People, unacquainted with SS Peter and Paul for reason or another, would remark, "As Iwalked past Salowich's funeral home on Livernois, across the street from the Boys' Club, I looked and saw that onion dome and that three bar cross and it simply stunned me for a moment and then a sense of gratitude welled up inside of me. Something was still going right with this neighbourhood." Another remarked, "For some reason, the only thing I thought when I first saw that church where it was is that some saintly Russian chapel was transplanted in Detroit for a reason." An elderly woman said, "That's SS Peter and Paul. That's our Orthodox Russia in Detroit becoming Orthodox America. You kids will be blessed by it if you take care of it." A visitor during Paschaltide when the doors were left open respectfully walked in for Vespers, crossed himself, "I went to school at St. John's down the street and for the longest time I heard so much about how beautiful this church was inside. For years, I wouldn't let myself just go in and see. Today I have and I'm so sorry I didn't do it sooner. This is a place of beauty, beautiful because it is holy. Thank you."

Hetman,
Thank you for all these beautiful photos and for the stories attached to them.

Detroit has suffered deeply in the downturn of our economy for a many years now. The Latin Church in Detroit is very blessed, IMHO, to be under the care of Archbishop Allen Vigneron. Before being transferred "home" to Detroit he was bishop of the Diocese of Oakland where I live. He and Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles were the two Latin Church Bishops who represented the USCCB at the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East because of the large number of Eastern Catholics within the geographical boundaries of both of their Archdiocese. He clearly brought his keen mind and deep spirituality to that role.

It's wonderful you have such a love for the rich history there of our Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. Thank you again for sharing it.

You're quite welcome. I just feel architecturally significant structures are a requisite part of our heritage and our piety. Thank you for sharing these sentiments.

I was just recently updated as to what became of All Saints Cathedral. It seems all but two members of that community went to ROCOR. Thereafter, in the vicissitudes ROCOR experienced in the last 15 years, they subsequently came to align themselves with the Bulgarian Orthodox church in the USA and their newly established monastery of St. Savas north of Detroit. It is curiously a Russian Orthodox Old Calendar monastery within the Bulgarian Orthodox patriarchate operating in North America and its iconography is breathtakingly beautiful. A definite place for pilgrimage and retreat in Michigan.

The OCA tried for a time to convert the All Saints Cathedral into a monastic community, but that effort seems to have failed and it is unclear what happened with the old church property.