Like the Ukrainian population itself in Parma, Saint Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church had an inauspicious start—a simple brick and stone schoolhouse built in 1949 on ten acres of land on State Road. However, less than forty years later, as the Ukrainian population in Parma was growing into the largest in the State of Ohio, Saint Josaphat became a Cathedral church and the seat of a new Ukrainian Catholic eparchy whose territory includes Ohio, part of Pennsylvania and most of the South.
The first generation of Catholic Ukrainians to come to Cleveland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were Ruthenians, who had immigrated from a mountainous area within Galicia known as Ruthenia. Their lands were then located within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today, they are part of Ukraine and Poland. Religiously, these Ruthenians were Byzantine or Greek Catholics, or sometimes called Uniates. They were spiritual descendants of Eastern Orthodox Ruthenians and other Eastern European groups who, through the Union of Brest in 1596, had sworn allegiance to the Roman Catholic pope, while retaining a right to practice most of their historic Eastern Orthodox customs, rituals, and liturgy.
Settling in the Tremont neighborhood, the immigrant Ruthenians, in 1910, built a church of their own that still stands today on West 7th Street, near College Avenue. It was first called Saints Peter and Paul Ruthenian Catholic Church, but was renamed Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church at the conclusion of World War I when the first modern Ukrainian state was established.
For most of the first half of the twentieth century, the children of the parishioners at Saints Peter and Paul Church attended school either in the basement of their church in Tremont or at other places in Cleveland. In 1947, Pastor Dmytro Gresko and his parishioners decided that they would build an elementary school for the parish children on land located in the suburb of Parma. Their decision was likely influenced by the number of parishioners who, since the end of World War II, had been moving out of Tremont and into that fast growing suburb.
The land selected for the new elementary school was a 10-acre parcel that lay on the west side of State Road between Kenmore Avenue and Liggett Drive. It was located just two blocks north of Saint Francis de Sales Catholic Church, and almost directly across the street from the Saint Stanislaus Novitiate, later renamed the Jesuit Retreat House. In the 1920s, the Order of the Polish Sisters of Saint Joseph had planned to construct a convent and school on this land. However, the Sisters later decided to instead construct those buildings—the latter of which was later known for many years as Marymount High School—on Granger Road in Garfield Heights. The Sisters then sold the land in Parma in 1929.
The land's new owners agreed, in October 1947, to sell it to Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church for $17,500. In April 1949, construction began on the new two-story, brick and stone Saints Peter and Paul school building. Completed that fall, it had eight classrooms for students on its north end and a large assembly hall on its south end that could hold 500 persons and also serve as a chapel. On November 6, 1949, a dedication ceremony was held at the new school, led by Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Constantine Bohachevsky of the Philadelphia Archeparchy, with assistance from Cleveland Bishop Edward F. Hoban and other Catholic church officials. At the ceremony, it was noted that this was the first Ukrainian Catholic grade school built in the Cleveland area.
Two years after dedicating the new school, Archbishop Bohachevsky returned to Parma on May 12, 1951 to bless the chapel in the school building which was named Saint Josaphat Chapel, after Josaphat Kuntsavych, a Ukrainian priest who had been murdered in 1623 because of his efforts, consistent with the tenets of the Union of Brest, to bring together Eastern Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics living in Galicia, which in that period was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Classes began at Saints Peter and Paul grade school on November 15, 1949, with a total of 135 students attending only grades one through three in that first year. Because many of those students still lived in Tremont, the parish also purchased a bus to transport children to and from the school in Parma. One of those bus drivers was Father Myroslav Lubachivsky, then an assistant pastor at Saints Peter and Paul. Some thirty-five years later, in 1985, he would be appointed a Cardinal of the Ukrainian Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II.
During the period 1950-1960, the number of people of Ukrainian, and other Eastern and South European ethnicities, moving into Parma more than tripled, as that city became one of the fastest growing suburbs in America. In order to address the increases in the Ukrainian Catholic population, Saints Peter and Paul added several new buildings to the Parma campus, including another classroom building, a rectory and a convent, and expanded the grades taught at the school to include from kindergarten to eighth grade.
In August 1959, recognizing the significant increase in the Ukrainian Catholics living in Parma, Archbishop Bohachevsky announced the creation of a new Ukrainian Catholic parish in Parma, to be sited on the grounds of Saints Peter and Paul grade school. The new parish was named—and the grade school renamed—like the chapel, Saint Josaphat. Father Andrew Ulicky, an assistant pastor at Saints Peter and Paul, was appointed the first pastor of this new Ukrainian Catholic parish.
Shortly after his appointment as pastor, Father Ulicky initiated plans to build a high school on the State Road campus. Construction of the building began in 1961, largely funded through the efforts of parishioners who not only gave money to the project, but also volunteered to do much of the skilled construction work. The new circular-shaped high school building was designed by architect and engineer Michael Stefanyk, who volunteered his services to the parish.
The building featured a wooden domed roof with a 141-foot diameter. However, because of mounting costs and limitations on the amount of time that could be spent on construction by parish volunteers, construction of the building lagged for years, taking many more years to complete than the two years initially anticipated. In the interim, while it sat unfinished, the building became a favorite haunt of Parma teenagers, who visited it often at night, conducting what might be called an early form of urban (or suburban) exploration.
The proposed high school building was finally completed in 1969 and blessed by Metropolitan Archbishop Ambrose Senshyn on April 20 of that year. By that time, however, the plan to use the building as a high school had been abandoned, largely due to the establishment of Saint Andrew Ukrainian Catholic parish on the south end of Parma in 1965. The creation of the new parish prompted the departure of about 500 families from Saint Josaphat.
When the circular, domed building was blessed, it was given the name Saint Josaphat Astrodome Hall—commonly known as the "Astrodome" in reference to Houston's recently completed domed stadium. Rather than serving students as their new high school, the building was repurposed as an assembly hall for the use of the Saint Josaphat parish. Since its completion, it has been the venue for many parish events, as well as serving as a venue for the events of other organizations, such as ethnic festivals, and for individual events, including weddings.
After the completion of the Astrodome, Father Ulicky and the parish's second pastor, Father Yaroslav Sirko, who succeeded Father Ulicky in 1971, turned their attention to building a church on the State Road campus. The need to do so became pressing when, on April 11, 1973, a horrific fire at Saint Josaphat grade school destroyed the chapel within the school building. As a temporary measure, masses were thereafter held in the Astrodome. Father Sirko, who was the pastor at the time of the 1973 fire, wanted to immediately construct a new church, but was unable to do so due to the state of parish finances at the time.
As a result, the challenge to build the new church fell to the parish's third pastor, Father Michael Fedorowich, who came to Saint Josaphat in 1979. By 1981, the parish finances had sufficiently improved to enable Father Fedorowich to begin construction. By the summer of 1983, when construction was almost completed, word was received by the parish that the new Saint Josaphat church was to become a Ukrainian Catholic cathedral and seat of a new eparchy—the equivalent of a Roman Catholic diocese—for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States. As a result of this development, additional construction was required in order to render the building's interior suitable as a cathedral. The following year, Father Robert Moskal was appointed the first bishop of the new Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Ohio.
When the 1990 federal census was taken—the first one following the completion of Saint Josaphat Cathedral and creation of the new Parma Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy, the results of the community questionnaires for Parma showed that the city's Ukrainian population, which in 1950, had been one of the smallest for residents of East European ancestry, had now become one of the largest, behind only the Polish and Slovak populations. In subsequent years, the Parma Ukrainian community continued to grow until it became, according to an article appearing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on March 24, 2022, the largest in the State of Ohio.
Along the way of their journey as one of the most important Ukrainian institutions in Parma, Saint Josaphat and its parishioners have experienced their share of joys and sorrows at their now historic State Road campus. In 2008, Saint Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic grade school,which had served children of the parish for nearly 60 years, closed its doors for good. However, in what must have been somewhat consoling to the parish, several years later the school building became home to a new K-8 public community school called the Global Village Academy, which offers language and cultural programs to students in every grade.
On an even more positive note, in 2008 the Parma City Council passed a resolution recognizing the many contributions that Ukrainians at Saint Josaphat and other institutions in the City had made, and honoring the Ukrainian community with the establishment of Ukrainian Village, a section of State Road beginning at Tuxedo Avenue on its north end and extending south all the way to Grantwood Drive, with signs alerting drivers of the existence of the Village.
Today, visitors to Parma, who drive to the suburb on State Road will, as they cross Brookpark Road, immediately take notice of the colorful signage which announces that they are entering Ukrainian Village. Within moments thereafter, they will see the five majestic onion domes of the beautiful Saint Josaphat Cathedral. The signs and the domes inform visitors not only of the historical importance of Saint Josaphat to Parma's Ukrainian community, but also of its importance to the City of Parma itself.
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