Chodniewicz, Rev. Florian
(May 24, 1861 -- Jan. 28, 1922)
PastorWhen he wrote his multi-volumed history of Poles in the United States, Father Waclaw Kruszka listed the names of the first thirty priests who came out of the Polish Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. For some unknown reason Florian C. Chodniewicz, who attended that institution and was ordained on August 19, 1889, by Bishop John S. Foley of Detroit, was omitted.
After receiving his primary education in Wachock, a village of 990 in 1857, compared to 2,777 persons in 2006, near Starachowice, now in Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland, he attended the gymnasium at Kielce, the seminary at Sandomierz, and two years at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Whether or not the Rev. Joseph Dabrowski (also spelled Dombrowski), head of the Polish Seminary, who visited Poland in the middle 1880s in search of priests and students, urged him to complete his education in Detroit, Florian Chodniewicz was the first Polish priest that Bishop Foley ordained in Detroit. At the same time, the New York Times reported that the Poles of Detroit liked the transfer of Rev. Casimir Rochowski from St. Josaphat to "the parish formerly in charge of the pugnacious Father Kolasinski." The fourth oldest Polish parish in Detroit owes its existence to the dissension that divided the Polish parishioners of Sweetest Heart of Mary and St. Albertus.
The rapid sucession of pastors at St. Josaphat parish after Father Rochowski is not entirely clear in the references to the priests in Father Waclaw Kruszka's books. Kruszka, who was acquainted with all of them, stated that Father Anthony Lex, assistant pastor at St. Josaphat in Detroit, succeeded Rochowski and then changed places with Father Martin Mozejewski of St. Adalbert's parish in Buffalo, New York. At the same time, the Saldier's Catholic Directory, which verified the change in 1891, said that the Rev. Florian Chodniewicz was also at St. Josaphat. It meant that when Father Mozejewski left Detroit, ostensibly to do missionary work among poor Polish immigrants in Brazil, Father Chodniewicz took charge of St. Josaphat and was succeeded by the Rev. Francis Mueller in June 1894.
Owing to the riots and bloodshed in the Polish community, Father Chodniewicz had enough of Detroit. He found a place in the Archdiocese of Chicago to his liking. It was Downer's Grove, a small farming and railroad town of less than 2,000 people, with unpaved streets and wooden sidewalks, about eleven miles west of Chicago. Although they didn't have their own parish, the Polish people of Downer's Grove enjoyed the services of a Polish priest since 1891. Through the influence of their first pastor, Father Chodniewicz was appointed pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Downer's Grove.
Unfortunately, when St. Joseph's parish built a new church at 48th St. and Hermitage Avenue on the south side of Chicago for $90,000, the quarreling among the Polish families grew so intense that the Archbishop of Chicago called priests from other parishes to help the beleagued pastor of the church with a 175-foot steeple. During the absences of the pastor Father Chodniewicz and other priests took care of the Polish families who depended a lot on the Union Stock Yards for a Livelihood. Exactly how long Father Chodniewicz remained at St. Joseph's is uncertain.
In 1900, he was appointed pastor of St. Columba, the first Catholic church in the Hegewisch section of Chicago. Since August 22, 1886, when the wooden church was dedicated, the small Catholic congregation felt like an abandoned child. Over the years, it was often without a regular pastor. Father Chodniewicz occupied the pastorate for five years. After 1905, he still occasionally celebrated Mass at St. Columba.
Ironically, when the Archbishop of Chicago established St. Florian parish for the growing Polish community in a swampy section of Chicago, Father Chodniewicz built the Polish church in almost the same style as St. Columba. It was hard to tell the difference from the outside between the two Catholic churches. One wonders how many times a Polish person under the influence of liquor was mistakenly in St. Columa Church for Mass and didn't know it. The men and boys of the Polish parish who built the first St. Florian church in 1907 at 131st Street and Houston Avenue followed the same style. The wooden church cost them only $10,000. Then, in 1908, the congregation built a brick school, three stories high, with a parish hall on the first floor, and two years later, in 1910, a rectory.
St. Florian -- the same spelling in Latin as in English -- bears the name of the patron saint of brewers, chimney sweeps, and soap boilers. The relics of St. Florian were brought to Poland in the 12th century. The remains of Father Florian lie in a Chicago cemetery. The priest was murdered by Charles Majewski, the janitor of St. Florian school, whom he caught stealing his holy wine on January 22, 1922. The police never arrested Majewski for the crime. The case is marked unsolved in Chicago police records. Majewski, who at one time lived at 13145 S. Houston Avenue, the same address as Father Chodniewicz and his housekeeper, was an alcoholic.
From: Edward Pinkowski --- [email protected] (2010)