CLEVELAND — Some members of a Catholic Church in Cleveland are thankful for 10 years of welcoming people inside to worship. 

“It’s smaller in size, but very active,” said the Rev. Eric Orzech, pastor of St. Casimir and St. Stanislaus Catholic churches in Cleveland. “These people [would] do anything. They’ve accomplished more than I would’ve thought possible.”

Orzech said his parishioners are passionate. 

“People see things and they make it happen,” he said. “They don’t worry about what they can’t do. They see what they can do and they do it.”

The St. Casimir church was built by Polish immigrants and first opened its doors in 1918. When the Cleveland Diocese ordered its doors closed in 2009, the one thing parishioners could do was pray. 

“Just to order ethnic churches closed arbitrarily across the diocese, I felt, was an injustice,” said Jan Sternisha. 

Sternisha’s family has attended the church for generations. 

“My great-grandparents were married here in the 1800s in the old building, my grandparents were then married here and my parents,” she said. 

St. Casimir was one of about 50 churches closed during a consolidation effort by the Cleveland Diocese, but parishioners still came to St. Casimir each Sunday for 139 weeks to pray for the doors to reopen. 

“It just shows you the strength of prayers,” said John Niedzialek, a parishioner. “This truly, we feel, is a miracle for us to be here today.”

The Vatican ordered the church to be reopened in 2012. 

“A lot took place to make that happen,” said Orzech. “A lot’s happened for the good in the last 10 years and we pray today that there will be more and better in the future.”

Parishioners are now celebrating the special place the church holds in the community. 

“We’ve had many miracles that have happened here,” said church member Monica Gorny. “Especially after the reopening of the church.”

The miracles include Doraelia Acosta’s fight to keep her husband in the country. 

“One year that we thought he was going to be deported [to Mexico], he wasn’t and then Valentina was born,” said Acosta. “So, St. Casimir has always considered Valentina, our 6-year-old, their miracle baby.”

Church members, like Julia Sofia Moreno, are looking toward the future while honoring the long legacy of the past. She said she was about 11 years old when the church was closed and her family was active in raising awareness about its role in the neighborhood. 

“I think it’s very important to recognize our roots and see the journey that we’ve taken,” she said. “Because it makes right now more sweeter.”