REMEMBERING ‘OUR LADY HELP’

Memories flood back for two priests after former Catholic church destroyed by fire

Elijah Missionary Baptist Church, the former Our Lady Help of Christians, was destroyed by fire on Nov. 14. This is what the church looked like as it was being torn down on Nov. 22. (Mike Matvey photos)

I was met with a gray, steely sky as I made the drive to Albany the Friday before Thanksgiving. Coming off 787 and heading up South Pearl Street, there was a funereal feeling as I turned left on Second Avenue in the South End, the car rumbling over one small stretch of cobblestone. 

The steep street was marked with abandoned buildings with red squares and white X’s as well as the Blue Deli and Grocery. Some buildings were for rent next to empty lots, overrun with tall grass.

I could only drive as far as Krank Street to the left and Elizabeth Street to my right. A large fence — littered with “DANGER - HARD HAT AREA” and “FALLING DEBRIS” signs — surrounded the property that I had come to see. I parked the car, and as it began to spit rain, it was quiet except for the sounds of large excavators. On Krank Street, there was still a fire hose hooked up to the hydrant, remnants of the fire that had consumed Elijah Missionary Baptist Church eight days before. 

The fire destroyed the church but it also opened up a torrent of memories for many Catholics in the Diocese of Albany who had gone to the former Our Lady Help of Christians for many decades — the cornerstone was laid in 1880 — before it was shuttered in 2002 due to dwindling attendance and shifting demographics. 

The church was now a shell of itself, with all the stained glass windows blown out and the back of the sanctuary completely open to the elements as a large red, white and blue excavator, perched on a pile of bricks and debris, continued the slow work of demolition.

The next day, as all that remained was the bell tower, workers brought the time capsule that was in the cornerstone to a table manned by Bishop Avery Comithier of Elijah Missionary, who was flanked by Father Robert Hohenstein and Father Leo Markert. Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Albany Historical Foundation President Matt Malette, former parishioners and curious onlookers also gathered around the table. In the time capsule were coins, old newspapers and a ledger with names of donors who helped build this church that served the German population, many who are just memories, for over a century.

There may not be two better people to talk about what Our Lady Help of Christians meant to the neighborhood than Father Hohenstein and Father Markert. Father Hohenstein was pastor there for 27 years after spending five years as assistant pastor. He closed the church down in 2002, when during the packed Mass before uttering “In the name of the Father and of the Son,” he famously said to the gathered faithful, “Where have you been?” Father Markert grew up at Our Lady  Help of Christians, went to the grade school — which was run by the Sisters of St. Francis out of Syracuse — served as an altar boy and celebrated his first Mass there after his 1962 ordination.

Father Hohenstein was ordained in 1968 and Bishop Edward J. Maginn, the apostolic administrator, assigned him to the parish after a brief stint at St. John the Baptist in Greenville.

“I went to see Bishop Maginn, who was the apostolic administrator, he was the one who ordained me and he said, ‘And now we are going to put you to work,’ ” Father Hohenstein recalled. “He said I am sending you to Our Lady Help of Christians because my name was German and it was a German parish and (you will also be a) fulltime teacher at Cardinal McCloskey High School.”

Father Hohenstein, who attended Our Lady of Angels Church and School at the corner of Central Avenue and Robin Street, was familiar with the South End from his grandparents. 

“My grandmother and grandfather lived on O’Connell Street. I knew the South End from there,” he said. “If I would visit them on a Sunday, we would go to Mass at the former St. James, now it is St. Francis of Assisi, on Delaware. That was a huge church and it was packed with people, wall-to-wall people.”

It was much the same at Our Lady Help of Christians, which was manned by past priests such as Father John W. Keefe, Father Bob Roos and Father George Mailloux, who were pastors from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s.

“Then I came back as pastor (after having been chaplain at St. Peter’s Hospital for two years) and I was pastor for 27 years,” he said. “I knew everything was changing, and the population was dwindling, but those people were so loyal and so supportive.”

Talking with Father Hohenstein is like taking a trip back in time. He explains that the South End, before it became part of the City of Albany, was called Groebeckville because of the German population there. And at one time there used to be eight parishes in the South End with Our Lady Help of Christians a mission church of Holy Cross Church, which was located on Hamilton and Phillip Streets just southeast of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Father Hohenstein also knew something had to be done as parishioners continued to move away.

“I am the one that said to the Diocese, ‘I think it’s time we close,’ because I wanted to be there when it closed because I could take the people through it. … We went out with grace and style,” he fondly recalled.

Father Markert’s affiliation to “Our Lady Help” goes back even farther to his grandfather, John Dreis.

“Way back then, (the parishioners) used to pay pew rent,” said Father Markert of the fee paid to sit in a specific pew which also served to raise money for the parish. “And on the second or third pew in the center aisle, my grandfather’s name was on one of those pews. It said, ‘John Dreis.’ ” 

Father Markert’s mother and her family as well as he and his siblings all went to the church and school there; they lived just five blocks down Second Avenue on Broad Street.

“Looking back on it, what I enjoyed most was serving Mass as an altar server,” Father Markert said. “My brother was also an altar server there with me at the parish. I just saw it as my home where I grew up with my church family. It was very meaningful to me. We have our graves at Our Lady Help of Christians Cemetery (located in Glenmont), so that is our follow-up connection to the parish.”

The news that the church was on fire hit both Father Hohenstein and Father Markert hard.

“My former maintenance man, who did everything for me in that church, called me up and said, ‘There is a fire at Our Lady Help.’ I turned on the news and I was devastated to see the flames coming out,” Father Hohenstein said.

Since the fire, Father Hohenstein has returned to the site of the church several times, talking with the guys running the demolition and slowly watching the church come down. I made my return on another rainy day, just last Wednesday, and the tower was gone as the red, white and blue excavator was silent, facing out on Second Avenue as a quiet sentinel.

The church — Maria Hilfe in German — might be gone but the mission to bring the word of Jesus Christ to all in the Diocese of Albany remains. After leaving Our Lady Help, Father Hohenstein spent 14 years at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Schenectady until his retirement. So although Our Lady Help of Christians now becomes another lost piece of old Albany, it remains in the hearts and minds of the people that worshipped there forever.