161-Year-Old Parish Ends, But Immaculate Conception Church Lives On

Cleveland was barely 50 years old when the Diocese of Cleveland was founded in 1847. With a booming population and an influx of Catholic immigrants, especially from Ireland, the church knew that the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, built in 1852 in Downtown Cleveland, needed to expand.

Three years later, the first seeds of Immaculate Conception Parish were planted by Bishop Amadeus Rappe, who established a mission on what is now East 41st Street. Another decade later, that mission would become a full parish, and it needed a permanent home after spending years as a mission in temporary buildings. 

In August of 1873, a crowd gathered to witness the laying of the cornerstone of the Immaculate Conception Church along Superior Avenue. Five years later, the church was built and became a religious home for the Irish community.

“This was a powerful sign that this immigrant community intended to remain and to flourish,” says Father Joseph Mamich, pastor of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.

On June 7, the first Sunday Mass celebrated by the new Oratory will take place. In fact, the 161-year-old parish no longer exists as of May 24, following a decree from Cleveland Catholic Diocese Bishop Edward Malesic. The parish was reunited with the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist through an extinctive union.

“And so, after more than 150 years, the story came full circle. Immaculate Conception had begun as a mission of the Cathedral and sent forth to minister to a growing population,” Mamich says. “Now, in a new era, it returned to that same Cathedral, its people and legacy entrusted once again to the mother church from which it sprang.”

The Immaculate Conception Church is now home to a new religious order, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP). Before arriving at Immaculate Conception Church, the ICKSP called the Shrine of St. Elizabeth home.

“We are thankful to Bishop Malesic for entrusting Immaculate Conception Oratory to the care of the Institute of Christ the King,” Rev. Canon James Hoogerwerf of the ICKSP told Cleveland Magazine. “We hope that our presence in the heart of the city and in the heart of the Diocese, within the very territory of the Cathedral Parish, will help to breathe new life into Immaculate Conception Church.”

For some, the decline of the parish and church was due to the Catholic Church's replacement of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in 1969. Yet the Immaculate Conception Church continued to offer Traditional Latin Masses up until 2023, according to a Facebook post after the “bishop’s restructuring of Mass in Extraordinary Form.”

“(Immaculate Conception) was a beautiful and vibrant parish with young families and children when it still had the Traditional Latin Mass. People would drive from across town to attend Mass there,” wrote Bradley Cummings of Elyria in a  Facebook post on March 22, 2026. “Then, in infinite wisdom, Rome and the Dioceses decided to strip that from the Faithful - the result? Continuing the decline and destruction that began with (Vatican II).”

In 2021, Pope Francis began regulating the use of the pre-Vatican II Mass. In October 2025, the Diocese of Cleveland confirmed that the Vatican granted permission for the celebration of the TLM to St. Mary’s Church in Akron and St. Stephen’s in Cleveland for a limited amount of time.

Under the Institute of Christ the King, the Immaculate Conception Oratory has already begun celebrating the Latin Mass daily. But Cleveland’s remaining TLM locations are now at two. If St. Stephen’s doesn't receive another renewal, the Institute of Christ the King will be the only order keeping the Latin Mass alive in the city.

In 2023, some saw the Institute of Christ the King as the only way to save the Latin Mass in Cleveland. Before David Pawlak of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, passed away in 2024, he said in a Facebook post on Nov. 7, 2023, “the Bishop did the best he could to keep the TLM going by giving it an oratory and staffing it with the ICKSP. I can assure you from personal experience that the Institute will take excellent care of the souls entrusted to them.”

For some, Immaculate Conception Church is where they were baptized, married or attended their first Mass, and ICKSP is hoping to continue that tradition. 

“We are confident that those who were members of the former Immaculate Conception Parish and many others from throughout the area will find the Oratory to be a vibrant spiritual home,” Hoogerwerf says.

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