UKRAINIAN VILLAGE — An expansive Ukrainian Catholic church has received a city grant to help fund a multi-year restoration to shore up the exterior of its historical building.
St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, 835 N. Oakley Blvd., has been undergoing extensive repairs to its domes, roof, windows and other parts of the structure since 2019.
Church leaders said the project is now about two-thirds complete, and the next steps depend on when they can secure additional funding. St. Nicholas has raised more than $4 million of a $5.6 million goal to complete the work.
That process got some help last month from a $250,000 Adopt-A-Landmark city grant to restore its southern rose window, which involves constructing an entirely new steel frame and cleaning and restoring the stained glass.
It’s the latest step in a much-needed renovation for the more-than-century-old St. Nicholas building, which acts not only as a house of worship but also a community center for Ukrainians who have fled their home country since Russia’s invasion two years ago.
The church’s attached grammar school has also enrolled dozens of Ukrainian children while providing social services, health care and more since the war began.
For church leaders and members, the exterior restoration is a down payment to ensure St. Nicholas will continue to thrive and grow — and serve the larger community, not just Ukrainian Catholics.
“The objective of this first stage of the cathedral restoration is to secure the long-term viability of the structure to serve the next 100 years of parishioners, to make sure that it doesn’t leak, that it’s sturdy, that it’s dependable, that it’s warm and welcoming,” said Oleh John Skubiak, a lifelong parishioner and adviser for the church’s stewardship and development team.
“I feel rewarded by being able to work on this project with the goal of having it restored and serving the next generation of Ukrainian Catholics, or Catholics in general.”
St. Nicholas launched its renovation campaign in spring 2019 following years of maintenance issues. That included a jarring moment in 2018 when a piece of stone fell from the church’s ceiling in the middle of a service, just feet away from Father Serhiy Kovalchuk.
The overhaul is focused exclusively on the exterior. Work so far has restored eight of the church’s 13 domes and some of the windows, among other priorities. A second phase will address interior upgrades.
The Adopt-A-Landmark grant earmarked for the rose window is part of $8 million in city funds to support landmarks and buildings within a landmark district, like St. Nicholas. Restoring the window is an extensive process that involves erecting a new frame, refurbishing the individual pieces of glass and plating the frame in copper, said architect Nestor Popowych, a parishioner overseeing the project.
“So that’s an added cost, right? You’ve got to clad it, and it’s not an easy task,” he said. “We want to restore it to its original majestic beauty.”
Work on the window is expected to begin this spring and take three to four months. Church leaders are applying for another grant to restore the northern rose window, which would ideally take place at the same time, they said.
St. Nicholas holds a position of prominence for Ukrainian Catholics in Chicago and across the country.
The cathedral is the mother seat of 43 Ukrainian Catholic churches and three monasteries between the Midwest and Hawaii. The church falls under the administration of the pope in Rome, but its rituals are mostly based in the Orthodox tradition.
Church leaders had hoped the renovations would be wrapped up by now, but fundraising was repeatedly delayed, first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then Russia invading Ukraine.
Now, St. Nicholas is raising money again to finish the job. Church leaders are asking for help from neighbors but especially the church’s growing population, which Skubiak said is a direct result of its efforts to modernize and be welcoming to everybody, not just Ukrainian speakers.
The church has launched a Naming Opportunities Program where parishioners can donate varying amounts to attach their name to a section of a larger stained glass window. Other donations can be made on the church’s website.
Popowych said the church could complete the renovation in two years if it had the necessary money today.
“It’s a reflection of the maturation of this community,” Skubiak said. “To the point where we hired an American priest to make this cathedral even more welcoming to the people around it. That’s a maturation that we didn’t have [before]. We were protecting our own language and our own culture and kind of isolating ourselves.”
As for the church’s ongoing social work, it continues to aid hundreds of Ukrainian families who have fled war and flocked to St. Nicholas since February 2022.
Kovalchuk said through English classes and other assistance, existing church members, including those whose families came to the United States decades ago, are helping the new arrivals get established in Chicago and acclimate to American culture.
“We understand that some of them will go back to Ukraine after the war, but a big part will stay. So they will work for this country, they will pay taxes, they will buy houses,” he said. “For me, as a pastor, it’s really nice to see how different groups of Ukrainians support each other and they learn from each other.”
The restoration project exists to ensure that mission continues and the cathedral remains a cultural, religious and community anchor in Ukrainian Village, leaders said.
“It’s about community. It’s about people. It’s about serving people. It’s about living with other people and being good neighbor to other people,” said Mariya Kokor, St. Nicholas’ director of stewardship and development who moved to Chicago from Ukraine in 2017. “This church is the future. It’s for my kids. It’s for the future generations.”
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