SOUND: street ambi from east 105th street
Cory United Methodist church is a powerful presence in Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood. The home of this historic African American congregation takes up an entire city block and features a grand stairway with classically designed columns. But, many parishioners arriving for Sunday services might be puzzled by the words chiseled over the main entrance --- they're written in Hebrew
SEAN MARTIN: It was known as the Cleveland Jewish Center.
Sean Martin is curator for Jewish History at the Western Reserve Historical Society and he's describing a 1920s-era building that was originally the home of the Anshe Emeth congregation.
SEAN MARTIN: What they were trying to do was be a center for the community, and so what they did here was they built a swimming pool and recreation facilities. So, it's much more than just a religious building.
Martin has tracked the history of this building and a string of other former temples that used to line East 105th street, which was once the heart of Cleveland's Jewish community. Most of these buildings were sold to black Christian groups in the 1950s, when the Jewish population moved to Cleveland Heights and beyond. But, despite that outmigration, the community still maintained a prominent presence downtown with the headquarters of the Jewish Community Federation. Then, this past fall, the Federation announced plans to relocate most of its operations to suburban Beachwood. JCF president Stephen Hoffman explains.
STEPHEN HOFFMAN: We used to have a significant number of people who are our volunteers who worked in the downtown area or were used to coming downtown at noon, easily. But, as the business community of Cleveland dispersed into the offices of suburban parks, people found it more and more difficult to be in their cars at noon coming downtown.
And it just made more sense, he says, to hold meetings where most of the members were. But, the decision to move sparked a major dispute in the Jewish community. Activist Anita Gray says there are many Federation members who still feel a strong connection to downtown and want to maintain it.
ANITA GRAY: There's a deep-seated feeling on behalf of our community that we not only take care of Jews, but we try to take care of the rest of the world, too. So, each of us feels this bond with the city of Cleveland and it's residents. So, we do not want to be perceived as abandoning the community.
DCB: So, how do you get over that hump?
ANITA GRAY: Well, we have a Solomon who divided the baby in half [chuckles].
Gray says, there are on-going discussions on how to strike the right balance.
ANITA GRAY: What it forced us to do is think about: who we are…where we're going…and what truly is our commitment to the city.
Faced with that same question, Bishop Richard Lennon has chosen to shrink the Cleveland Catholic Diocese by about 50 churches. On a Sunday morning this past March, he explained his reasoning to reporters.
BISHOP LENNON: Using Cuyahoga County as an example, the Catholic population in the city of Cleveland has decreased by more than 60% since 1950, while the Catholic population in the rest of the county has tripled.
The clear movement of people away from the cities of Cleveland, Akron and Lorain was one of the Bishop's main arguments for closing and/or merging dozens of urban churches with relatively low attendance figures.
MARGOT WILLIAMS: I understand that. I understand that these are tough times.
Margot McClellan Williams is a parishioner at St. Cecilia's, on Cleveland's southeast side. Her church is scheduled to close, next year --- a fact that she finds hard to accept.
MARGOT WILLIAMS: It doesn't make sense that when there are tough times for the church to leave the city where the people who are having hard times are living. It doesn't seem to be the Christian way of handling things --- leaving the people who are most in need.
Tending to those in need is a special focus of nearby Epiphany church that oversees the operation of the Thea Bowman Center --- well known in the community for it's adult education, food assistance and other social outreach services. The Bishop has said he wants to explore ways to keep the Bowman Center open, but that offers little solace to the parishioners of Epiphany who now will have to find a new place of worship. One option is Our Lady of Peace --- one of the last churches standing on the southeast side. Pastor Gary Chmura says that's not a distinction for his congregation to celebrate.
GARY CHMURA: I told the people when I read the letter from the Bishop here, just place themselves in the benches of St. Cecilia and in the benches of Epiphany. It's not a comfortable or happy feeling. So, however we can aid in the healing of that…however we can extend a welcome…I'm eager to do that. And the next step is to learn how to do that. It's going to take an awful lot of work.
Several blocks away from St. Cecilia, Valentino Lassiter has been pastor of the East View United Church of Christ since 1979. In those thirty years, he's seen a number of his Protestant colleagues fall sway to the shifting demographics of Northeast Ohio.
VALENTINO LASSITER: There's a move going on towards "bigger and better; expansion".
Unable to expand in the land-locked inner city, he says a number of churches are beating a path to the suburbs. He compares it to the biblical concept of "exodus".
VALENTINO LASSITER: But then too, many feel that even if it is exodus, like Abraham, they're going to a better place. They're going on to another land where they hope it's going to be better. I say, "Aren't you leaving Jerusalem? Aren't you leaving the territory?" And they say, "Yes, but like Abraham, we're seeking a place, a land, that's going to be even better than this."
But, Valentino Lassiter is concerned about the fate of those left behind. He says the departure of a church means more than just the loss of Sunday services. From temples that offer recreation programs, to parishes that provide food to the poor, local congregations have a long history of social outreach.
VALENTINO LASSITER: The church doesn't just belong to the denominations. Take ours --- we don't just belong to the United Church of Christ, quite frankly, we belong to the community. Groups that are not necessarily affiliated with the church come to use it for meetings, we service people who want to get married. If some issue arrives in the city where we want to discuss violence and bring people together, then the church is there to do that.
But, the question that many local communities are now grappling with is: when a church closes or moves to the suburbs… who else will pick up the mantle?
