Attempts to save Orchard Lake’s Polish Seminary have failed…
SS Cyril & Methodius Seminary is no more
By Robert Strybel, Polish/Polonian Affairs Writer
Apart from improving their lot, the Poles that flocked to America in the late 19th and early 20thc centuries also ought the freedom to worship in their native tongue. But back then Polish-speaking priests were a rarity, and America’s Catholic Church was largely controlled by clergy of Irish and German descent. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII granted permission for a Polish seminary to be established in the US.
Father Józef Dąbrowski set it up in Detroit, but due to the growing demand for Polish-speaking clergy it soon outgrew that location and moved to a spacious lakeside campus in the leafy suburb of Orchard Lake. SS Cyril & Methodius soon developed into one of Polish America’s leading religious, educational and cultural hubs. Since its founding it had sent more than 2,000 ordained priests to preach the Word of God in Polish across America.
A plaque at the Orchard Lake campus depicts the first two rectors.
America’s post-World War I anti-immigrant policies halted the spontaneous flow of newcomers from Poland and other “less desirable” countries. But the thousands of Polish displaced persons that found refuge in the US after World War II reaffirmed the Polish Seminary’s raison d’être. At least temporarily. In the 1980s, a smaller influx of Polish anti-communist political refugees occurred.
For decades, PolAms had been the economic mainstay of what the Polish Pontiff John Paul II had called “serce Polonii” (the very heart of Polonia). Around the country Friends of the Polish Seminary groups were busy raising funds. There were concerts, banquets, card parties and raffles plus many individual contributors making regular donations. The passage of those more activistic generations coincided with the vocational crisis, creating a formidable threat.
In the 21st century, when less than 10% speak Polish to some extent and nearly all of them worship in English, innovative changes were needed if Orchard Lake was to survive. Cyril & Methodius Seminary made an agreement with Poland’s Episcopate to train seminarians from Poland to serve America’s increasingly priest-short parishes in the English language.
That did provide a temporary reprieve, but the vocation crisis soon hit Poland itself, whose Episcopate could no longer afford to export its thinning ranks of young men studying for the priesthood. The Seminary’s new rector, Father Bernard Witek, was tasked with creating a recovery program to save the Seminary. His proposals included training priests from third-world countries where Christianity is dynamically expanding. However members of the old Polonia opposed the idea.
The Seminary’s closure has left St Mary’s Preparatory as the sole surviving educational institution of what used to be known as the Orchard Lake Schools. That high school now has few PolAm students, with Chaldeans (Iraqi Catholics) dominating the enrollment, and has evolved into a high-performance sports school. St Mary’s College, a four-year, liberal-arts college, had already been taken over by Madonna University to become its satellite campus back in 2003.
Historian Dr John Radziłowski, who heads the Polish Institute of Culture and Research, has renovated the Galeria (art gallery) which will soon host its grand-opening art show. The Institute has secured a grant and assisting personnel from Poland’s Foreign Ministry to create a research unit and archive tons of valuable historical documents, book collections and other Polonian memorabilia which had been scattered for decades. Father Witek is now in charge of the St John Paul II Liturgical Center. At this writing, it remains unknown to what use the former seminary building will be put.
SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary (sscms.edu)
