St. Hedwig church in Chester will no longer be a Catholic church, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday.
Services at the church, 2623 W. Fourth St., which has been part of Sacred Heart Parish, have been suspended since the end of 2023.
In August 2023, the boiler at St. Hedwig’s failed, and replacement costs were estimated at $60,000.
In October of that year, after having spoken to the congregants at St. Hedwig regarding the dire financial situation facing their church, the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish petitioned for the relegation of the church to profane but not sordid use.
Regular Sunday worship has been suspended since Dec. 31, 2023. The present church lot was purchased in 1915, with the building dedicated two years later.
That final Mass marked the close of a nearly 122-year history for Polish-specific churches in Chester and the region, including a 30-year period as the lone survivor of the 1993 consolidation of the city’s parishes by the archdiocese.
While five others were suppressed and consolidated into the former St. Robert’s on Providence Avenue as Blessed Katharine Drexel Parish (now St. Katharine Drexel), St. Hedwig’s continued in suppression as a worship site under the governance of Sacred Heart Parish in Clifton Heights. The bilingual Mass carried on its century-plus heritage to the end, with the first reading, responsorial psalm, Our Father and several hymns conducted in Polish.
In the Sunday press release, archdiocesan officials said that while those worshipping at St. Hedwig’s had been contributing generously for the upkeep of their church, their donations proved insufficient for the church’s ongoing maintenance needs. Multiple repairs have been financed by Sacred Heart Parish, which itself faced an operating deficit in 2024.
Following archdiocesan policy, the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish provided further information and documentation regarding Sacred Heart Parish and St. Hedwig Church in June 2025.
It included a letter in support of the petition signed by the members of the finance and pastoral councils of Sacred Heart Parish, copies of announcements made to the faithful of St. Hedwig’s and Sacred Heart regarding the petition, financial reports on both the church and the parish, and a number of invoices and proposals submitted to Sacred Heart Parish regarding needed repairs to St Hedwig.
An adjacent parcel of land next to the church was sold in January, the money will be used to help offset the regular deficits that accrue in financing Sacred Heart’s parish operations.
St. Hedwig’s is situated within the territory served by St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Chester, and is surrounded by a number of nearby parishes including St. Thomas the Apostle in Glen Mills and St. Joseph in Aston, where many former congregants from St. Hedwig’s currently worship.
The future disposition of the St. Hedwig church building will be determined by the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in consultation with the parish pastoral and finance councils in accord with relevant church law and archdiocesan policies, and in a manner consistent with providing for continued parish viability and sustainability, the archdiocese said.