National Catholic Register, Edward Pronechen: Imagine a once-thriving town with seven churches, businesses, schools, and working families — now with less than 10 residents. Imagine all but a handful of those homes and building once alive but now mostly razed. Imagine only one beautiful structure left. The only one that remains fully alive and thriving in the ghost town.
Imagine no more because the municipality is Centralia, Penn., and the only one, thriving edifice is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church. So flourishing, in fact, that it has been designated a holy pilgrimage site and was chosen to have a Holy Door of Mercy in the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia for the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
The pilgrimage begins in a big way on Sunday, Aug. 28, the feast of the Feast of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God celebrated on the Julian calendar. Much will go on beginning with the Divine Liturgy celebrated by the archeparchy’s Metropolitan-Archbishop Stefan Soroka and other priests. Read more here.
