Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish, originally organized in 1903 by the growing population of Slovak immigrants in Cleveland at 9614 Aetna Ave., thrived for 90 years in what is today’s Union-Miles neighborhood before closing permanently in 1992.

Cleveland’s first Slovak Catholic church, St. Ladislas, was founded in today’s Kinsman neighborhood in 1885 on East 92nd Street and Holton Avenue. As the Slovak community grew, many people moved south, following work opportunities at the American Steel & Wire plant and other jobs in the then-Newburgh area.

The resettled community members in 1902 petitioned Cleveland Catholic Bishop Ignatius Horstmann to establish a Slovak Roman Catholic parish in Newburgh—ultimately paying $2,500 to establish the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish. The parish members first worshipped in rented rooms before they dedicated their new church in December 1903.

Nativity Church interiorNativity Church saw four priests between 1903 and 1908, before Father Vaclav A. Chaloupka, who was fluent in Slovak culture and the language, arrived in January 1909 and served until his death in 1956.

Under Chaloupka’s guidance a schoolhouse, designed by Cleveland architect Emile Ulrich, was built in 1915 on the original church site. The original church building was moved one block away to Dunlap Avenue.

Chaloupka opened a camp for parish children on his Kelley’s Island property, and the congregation continued to grow, and the cornerstone for a new church was laid in 1925 and opened in 1927.

The new Nativity Church was designed by Cleveland architect William Jansen, who also designed more than 24 Roman Catholic churches in Northeast Ohio, including St. Vitus Church in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood.

The Lombard-Roman style red brick church with stone trim and dual towers flanking its grand front entrance featured vibrantly painted domed ceilings and towering arched stained glass windows. It was a jewel of the neighborhood.

In the 1940s, Nativity had more than 1,200 members, three priests, and a convent.

The parish thrived until many members in the early 1950s started moving out of Cleveland and into the suburbs. By the early 1970s, the school closed. The congregation remained loyal—even to the seven priests to come after Chaloupka and many of the parishioners who moved away still came back to worship.

Inevitably, however, the congregation dwindled, much of the dense Slovak population spread outside of the Newburgh and Union Miles neighborhoods, and the church began to show its age. By 1990, Nativity Church was reduced to just 30 members.

On December 27, 1992 Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary closed. Since then the building has sat, decaying and vandalized.

After the parish closed, the diocese allowed a local family to run a neighborhood outreach out of the church until 1999. The church was then sold to a preacher who was building a congregation and attempted to upgrade the Nativity building. However, the preacher died sometime in the early or mid-2000s—leaving his wife with the mortgage payments. Although another preacher offered to take over the mortgage payments, the arrangement fell through and the widow was forced to walk away from the church at some point between 2017 and 2019. 

The former house of worship that empty and abandoned since then, while vandals had free reign of the property. The City of Cleveland bought the church property in 2023 and began demolition last week.

News Channel 5 reported that during demolition, former parishioners asked the city to preserve the contents on the cornerstone. Inside, the parishioners, city officials, and the demolition crew discovered old papers and coins preserved from 1927.