The Church of The Mediator: Silent Jewel

What once was The Episcopal Church of the Mediator sits on a hill in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago silent and still.

Built into one of the highest places in Chicago, it sits on the peak of the Beverly ridge empty like a beautiful jewel left behind to be sold at an estate sale. The sign that once labeled it The Church of the Mediator is gone; only two posts give hint that there was a name to some type of house of worship here. A quote above the two ornate looking doors of the entrance has a cross and the quote “God so loved the world.” Just around the corner of the door are two dates chiseled into its lower side: 1889 and 1929. All the doors have padlocks on them, and you can’t really see into the church because of its stained glass. There is a mystery to this building.

It wasn’t always so.

This church was the first church built and once one of the largest Episcopal churches in the southwest area of Chicago. It served as the the hub, the mother church planting Episcopal parishes all over this region of Chicago. Its history is rich. Generations of people attended here: they were baptized here, worshiped here married here, and attended Bible classes and other Christian events here. They were buried here.

What happened? Why would this base of vital Christianity whose completion to the quote above its door be “God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should have eternal life (John 3:16, KJV).” be now vacant. The Chicago Tribune in a story dated December 31, 2007 records its final end:

By Tara Malone, Tribune staff reporter Manya Brachear contributed to this report
Chicago Tribune
chicagotribune.com
December 31, 2007

By 10:30 a.m., eight altar candles at the Church of the Mediator on Chicago's Southwest Side had been snuffed for the final time. Wall hangings and flags laid bundled in back pews, waiting to be parceled off to nearby congregations.

Hymnals and prayer books had been offered to parish members, mementos of the church that closed Sunday, ending 129 years of service.

The church closed because of dwindling membership, an aging congregation and the resulting financial constraints, leaders said. Average weekly attendance had dwindled to about 30 members, parish leader Mary Reich said.

The shuttering shrinks to 128 the number of Episcopal congregations in the diocese of Chicago, which includes about 41,000 members throughout northern Illinois. Church of the Mediator had been the first Episcopal congregation on the Southwest Side, according to the church Web site.

"We weren't ever able to build up a young congregation again. People leave. Many families die out," Reich said, as she handed every family an artist rendering of the stained-glass window above the altar. Reich said church members debated closing as early as 1980.

Generations of members returned for the service, many of whom were baptized, confirmed and married in the traditional, stone church tucked along a residential street in Morgan Park, located at 10961 S. Hoyne Ave. More than six dozen people gathered for the final celebration, bringing to mind earlier, more vibrant days of the church.

"Sing as you've never sung before. Pray as you've never prayed before," Rev. Donald Frye told parishioners at the start of the service. Frye shepherded the church through its final month after the previous pastor left to head another church. "Take the good from this place and spread it around."

Many described the closing as sad but inevitable, calling it a sign of changing times. Others made plans to carpool to nearby parishes.

After the service, Carlmac Falk of Beverly hurried to offer a ride any Sunday to Al Hardwidge, 86, who joined Church of the Mediator nearly six decades ago. Falk said he first walked into the church Christmas Eve 1970. He returned for the final time Sunday with his wife and two sons.

"We've all failed because this should never have happened," Falk said. "I hope that maybe something good will come of it."

Taking in the stained-glass windows and stone walls, Julie O'Shea worried about the future of the church where she was married.

On Sunday, the Beverly mother watched as her 5-week-old daughter, Sofia, was baptized, the newest member to join the closing church.

"It was a bittersweet way to end it. ... Whatever happens, I want the dignity to stay, the integrity of the building," O'Shea said.

Diocese leaders officially "secularized" the church Sunday. The future use of the building has not yet been determined, said Rev. Michael Stephenson with the Chicago diocese.

"We're very sad whenever a church closes," Stephenson said. "Sometimes, it is the most appropriate course of action."

In town from Indianapolis, Heather Carmody extended her holiday visit to attend.

Carmody grew up as a fixture of the church where both her grandparents and parents were married. Sitting in a wooden pew alongside her mother and aunt, Carmody cried as the final hymn was sung.

"I used to walk here and meet my grandfather for church on Sundays," Carmody said of her grandfather Howard Heckmann.

Now 87, Heckmann returned for the service from Harbert, Mich., where he attends a Church of the Mediator founded by many of the original members of the Morgan Park parish. Heckmann planned to take furniture from the parish hall and kitchen appliances back to the smaller offshoot in Michigan.

Other parish belongings were either given to area parishes or longtime members with a special connection to a particular item, Reich said. Anything remaining will go to the diocese.

The Church of the Mediator opened in 1878, holding its first service in a hayloft near the corner of 111th Street and Hale Avenue. Eleven years later, Morgan Park officials donated a corner plot of land at 110th Street and Hoyne Avenue for the parish's first church. In 1930, a new church was built, with parish offices and a social hall added in.(Malone, Brachear 15).

These are all bittersweet and somber reminders of the past, but how could such a mainstay in the Beverly Community descend to such a shriveled state. Why are mainline churches like the Episcopal declining and the more Charismatic/Spirit-Filled growing rapidly? This regal building is like the exotic, single beauty that no one asks to marry who was left behind by circumstances or wrong decisions. Perhaps this 2007 insight on an Episcopalian who severed ties with the denomination offers some insight:

The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow. The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith -- saying that traditional theism is "dead," the incarnation is "nonsense," the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is "a barbarous idea," the Bible is "pure propaganda" and so on. Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed.

Is it any wonder why a place such as The Church of the Mediator is vacant now? The central tenants of Biblical Christianity that this church believed were gutted by a denomination gone astray in so many ways.

I pray that the Spirit of Truth would blow again in this building. Then it will be silent no longer. Songs of praise, joy, and deliverance will be heard again.