St. Elizabeth church a pillar of Hungarian community
Calgary’s St. Elizabeth Roman Catholic Church was dedicated 60 years ago to serve residents of Hungarian origin.
This mandate has been faithfully pursued ever since. One parishioner, Julius Kiss, has been with the church the entire time.
As an original church member, Kiss describes the religious gathering place as one that has continually served the needs of its newly arrived displaced people — providing religious, cultural, social and economic support.
The 68-year-old Kiss came to Calgary in 1949 when he was four years old.
Many Hungarians had come to Canada in the 1920s because of the economic depression back home. Many settled throughout southern Alberta to farm and work in the coal mines.
Kiss’s parents came to Canada when a family sponsored them.
“That’s how we got here Christmastime 1949,” says Kiss.
“At the time, of course, there was no church yet. As the Hungarians started to gather here and more and more families started to come, they started to indicate that they needed some central type of gathering place,” explains Kiss. “The key thing to mention here is that these were ethnic churches. It’s a place of worship, but it’s not only a place of worship, it becomes a gathering place, a social centre, a place to practise our religion, practise our language, our culture.”
The church was really a focal point of the lives of the Hungarians at that time.
“We didn’t have a church at the beginning,” says Kiss.
Some money was gathered through donations and the community bought an existing church on 13th Avenue S.W. It was fixed up a bit and then, in 1953, it was dedicated as a church.
Kiss, who was an altar boy at the initial church, was eight years old when it was dedicated. He has seen the growth in the church community and the role the place of worship has played in the lives of the Hungarian community over the past six decades.
The role was so important that the community printed a history book for its 50th anniversary.
There were about 3,000 Hungarians in the city in the mid1950s.
A building committee was struck with the aim of getting a bigger church.
“With the approval of the Calgary diocese, it ventured on a fundraising campaign to raze the existing church and build a new one in its place,” says Kiss.
Although much money was raised, they were short of their goal and had to go to Bishop Carroll — the bishop of Calgary at the time — seeking some funds.
Emery Varga headed up the committee of six. Kiss says the committee basically had a bit of a sit-down strike in the bishop’s office. The bishop wasn’t in, but a monsignor in charge of the finances relented and guaranteed them a loan of $11,000 to complete the project.
It becomes a gathering place . . . a place to practise our religion, practise our language, our culture JULIUS KISS, A MEMBER OF ST. ELIZABETH FOR 60 YEARS
In 1963, the new church was dedicated again. It’s been there ever since, with a few additions along the way.
Today, there are about 250 parishioners and the church is able to continue performing its mass in Hungarian on Sundays.
The church is named after St. Elizabeth, who was a princess of Hungary in the early 1200s.
Sixty years later, it remains a focal point for the local Hungarian community.
It’s used by Scouts, seniors, Bible groups, literary groups, dance troupes, etc.