So the NYPost entitles an article about the rapid final closure of a parish:
Egan’s spokesman last week had said that although the small church was slated to close – because of dwindling attendance, a crumbling roof and the fact that Mass no longer was being offered in Lithuanian – no closing date had been set.
But yesterday, Egan summoned the Rev. Eugene Sawicki to his Madison Avenue office at 9 a.m., and told him "the closure is effective immediately," said archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling.
Even as that meeting with the pastor was occurring, three security guards were changing the locks on the parish doors and preventing anyone from entering.
Our Lady of Vilnius, located at 32 Dominick Street across from the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, was a "national parish" founded in 1905 to serve Lithuanian Catholics then living in the New York metropolitan area. National parishes were originally established to serve large numbers of immigrants from a particular country, for instance Germany or Italy, by providing services in their native language and preserving their cultural and religious celebrations.
Sunday and Holy Day Masses were regularly attended by six to thirty persons. They were in English, inasmuch as the priest serving the parish for many years does not understand, read, or speak Lithuanian. There have been virtually no weddings or funerals in the church for years. Moreover, persons wishing to participate in Mass and parish activities in Lithuanian are informed of Lithuanian parishes in the neighboring Diocese of Brooklyn and Archdiocese of Newark.
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