About

In 1919, the year after the Great War (now called World War I 1914-1918), there was a "push" for a new parish among Catholics west of Hoover Street, and in the church such initiative, when pressed, gains not only espiscopal attention, but action. Thus Bishop John Cantwell, then Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles created our parish, on November 26, 1919. The Bishop named Father William McDermott Hughes as the pastor.Now at the time, Father Hughes was in residence at St. Patrick's church in Watsonville. He had only recently returned from Europe where he served as an army chaplain during the war. America entered that war in 1917, vowing in the words of that popular Irish-American composer Goerge M. Cohan not "to come back till t'was over, overthere." Well when it was over, Father Hughes returned and as a "civilian" priest was waiting orders to move to a new assignment. Willingly he received the word that he had been appointed the first pastor of the new parish of St. Basil's in Los Angeles.

Father Hughes was a native Californian, born in Sacramento. Before the war, he worked for a number of years among tribes of Native Americans in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. By all accounts he was a tireless worker and now at thirty nine years of age he happily embraced his new assignment as a challenge and quickly packed his gear and headed south.

Newspaper accounts touted the new parish as being in a very affluent area, called Wilshire Heights. When Father got here, he found that those speculations were overrated. The parish was not in a poor area but certainly not affluent in any sense of that word. Father didn't to care; he wanted to work. Quickly, he got a house at the corner of 7th street and Catalina and turned it into his field headquarters. He mobilized the Catholic people in the new area, held masses and meetings, organized sectional leaders, and began to make plans for the erection of a church.

In quite an extraordinary short space of time, the pastor on May 12, 1920 signed a contract with Albert C. Martin, as architect, and Edward C. English, as contractor, to complete a church in 75 working days. What is even more extraordinary was that it was not only built within the stipulated time but that miraculously the pastor had pledges from the parishioners in the amount $20,120 teh cost of the new edifice. I have no way of computing what a "1919 dollar" would be worth today but I'm assured that the amount would be many, many times that of a "1994 dollar". What it points out is that Catholics, who love their faith and want to see it celebrated in a proper setting, will do whatever is asked of them. The old axiom that where there's a will there's a way is not just true, but, when it comes to a lively faith, no sacrifice, no cost seems insurmountable.

Well the formal dedication of the newly erected St. Basil's Church took place on Sunday, November 21, 1920 (six days less than a year from the founding of the parish). It was a jubilant occasion by all accounts. The ceremony was performed by Bishop Cantwell with a large retinue of clergy and civic officials in attendance. The music was enhanced by a string quartet from the newly formed

Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. The Los Angeles TImes reported on the event: "The main altar was a mass of red carnations and the side altars were banked with chrysanthemums, harmonizing beautifully with the color scheme of the interior decorations."

Father Hughes had a set a marvelous example of leadership and his pastoral pace continued with undiminished vigor. He inauguratged a special annual observance of Armistice Day (November 11th) with formal delegation present from the military services. The mass was attended by the California Governor and the Mayor of Los Angeles and during the day there was a catafalque (an empty draped coffin) before the altar, and guards of honor from the military stood about it throughout the day.

Father's pastorate of St. Basil's was eventful, energetic, but short. He was called to serve the church at a national level as Director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, in Washington D.C.. Thus Father Hughes, the first pastor of St. Basil's reluctantly resigned his pastorate. On January 5, 1922 with hugs, tears, and handshakes, Father left his newly gathered flock to go to Washington. A new pastor for St. Basil's was quickly appointed. The choice was Father Edward Kirk, who had previously served as pastor at All Souls in Alhambra and Holy Family in Glendale. He was 38 years years of age and he continued the pace set by the former pastor. Father Kirk was a native of Rochester, New York, short of stature, thin in figure and an excellent musician. After Father Kirk's appointment adjustment were made in the boundaries of St. Basil's. The parish area would from then on be bordered by Vermont (east), Third Street (north), Western Avenue (west), and San Marino (south). Father was advised, by reasons of these changes, to seek a piece of property, more centrally located for the church. Quickly he acquired a site on Wilshire Boulevard at Harvard and through Albert C. Martin got the Los Angeles House Moving Company to undertake the removal of the church from 7th and Catalina to the new location. The church was not moved as on unit, but was carefully split into three parts. It was quite an engineering feat for those days, enough to warrant coverage in the Times. After the church had been settled and sealed at Harvard and Wilshire, a matter came up, which came up time after time in the following years and decades. The matter manifested itself as a problem: should St. Basil's build a parochial school? Almost every parish had a school and for those outside the parish the question arose and still come up: why no school at St. Basil's? Well for some strange reason, the answer that has come back time and again, after extensive consultations, was that there were never enough children in the are to warrant the undertaking. It was felt that the few children in St. Basil's parish could be accommodated at St. Brendan's, which was seen as a Regional school and located within a block of the western boundary of the parish.

Fr. Kirk was an exceptional priest. He was not only an active Pastor of St. Basil's but a professor of music at the Junior Seminary and director of Catholic Radio programs. Yet is was not for those that he attained a special place in the history of the Archdiocese,

but for his Novena to the Sorrowful Mother. So devotional, so moving was his rendition of this Novena, that growing attendance led him to conduct no less than five celebrations every Friday. In fact, on the Metro Red line streetcars, the driver would announce every Friday where those going to St. Basil's for the Novena, should exit. The "Sorrowful Mother" preacher and propagator, however had has own Calvary. On October 29, 1943 a fire, which started in the entrance to the church, burned most of the church furnishings before it was brought under control. Fr. Kirk had to move the church services to 3584 Wilshire while the church was being repaired. Again the generous spirit of St. Basil's parishioners manifested itself and the indebtedness for the refurbishing of the church was liquidated in a relatively short period of time. The Novena grew even more in popular until the pastor, than a Monsignor, died suddenly and silently after mass, and the distribution of the ashes on Ash Wednesday, 1949.

The third pastor, Monsignor Henry Gross came from Anaheim, where he was pastor at the parish of St. Boniface. By this time St. Basil's had outgrown the little brown wooden church on Harvard and the new pastor began to make plans for a bigger and more elegant sanctuary for worship. Adjacent properties were acquired and by August 9, 1965, plans were set for a new 40,000 square foot church and rectory with the church facing Wilshire and the Rectory directly behind it, on Kingsley. It was a massive undertaking which involved Monsignor Hawkes, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese and Cardinal McIntyre, the first Cardinal of a diocese west of Chicago and St. Louis.

Cardinal McIntyre had served as a priest and later as Co-Adjutor Archbishop of New York before coming to Los Angeles. His youth was spent on Wall Street. He was what would be termed a "late-vocation", but from his background on Wall Street he longed for a great church, not unlike St. Patrick's in New York, located in the business district of Los Angeles. His dream and that of Monsignor Gorss seemed to merge into one, and with Monsignor Hawkes as the practical down-to-earth manager, the dream was sketched into existence by the Albert C. Martin architectural company, and those sketches were erected as the new St. Basil's by The Pozzo Construction Company. Thus the St. Basil's we know today was built and solemnly opened on June 26, 1969.

Shortly afterwards on December 15, 1969, Monsignor Gross retired, and Monsignor Hawkes was appointed fourth Pastor of St. Basil's. The new pastor had a distinguised career. He was an accountant before going to the Seminary. There he was elected Student Body President, and shortly after ordination he became Secretary to Archbishop McIntyre, who was designated a Cardinal, in 1953. Monsignor Hawkes later was appointed Chancellor of the Archdiocese, and with the coming of Archbishop Manning, Monsignor was made Vicar General and honored as a Protonotary Apostolic. St. Basil's Church as we know it, was fathered into existence by Monsignor Hawkes.

The fifth pastor was Rev. M. Francis Meskill, who was appointed by the newly installed Archbishop of Los Angeles, the Most Reverend Roger Mahony. Father Meskill came from the Claremont Colleges, where he served as Chaplain of the Colleges for 14 years.

Over the previous decade, the demographics of the parish had changed again as the newly arrived immigrants from the Philippines and Korea began to settle in the area. In fact so many Korean businesses located there that the CIty Council officially designated the most of the parish area-Koreatown. The church now serves a multi-ethnic population of Asians, Hispanics, long term resident Anglos as well as African-Americans.

The parish awaits the completion of the Subway Metro System. The promise of the Subway, with a station within a block of the church, is that this will increase attendance at St. Basil's by providing easy access to the church from all along the Wilshire corridor.

The parish community is large and growing and the future portends a larger and more ethnically diverse community. On Pentecost Sunday, St. Basil's and the Spirit of God brings together persons from all parts of the Philippines, with their powerful spiritual attachment to holy Mass and devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help; Koreans come with a spiritual energy that expresses itself in overflow Masses, and evangelical fervor which attracts some seventy five or more converts a year; Hispanics are drawn here from Mexico and countries in all Central and South America; and there are Africans too from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa; and Europeans from Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Austria, Lithuania and France, and of course Anglos from Canada and long time California residents from throughout the United States and native Californians, whose roots go back to the Land Grant Spanish families; and at least two Native Indians, one a Chumash Indian, whose tribe was resident in California centuries before Father Serra founded the Missions.

St. Basil's is proudly named for a Saint of the church, whose grandmother, father, mother, two brothers (St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sabaste) and sister (St. Macrina) are all saints setting the perfect example for today's families. Next door to the church and to the North on Kingsley is a three story rectory including an enclosed garden. The rectory is made of the same brush-hammered substance as the church and served as the residence of Cardinal McIntyre when he retired from his position as Archbishop of Los Angeles. Since the Cardinal was buried from St. Basil's, his galero, or Red Hat, as a Prince of the Church, once hanged over the main altar and now displayed in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

There is a precipio or Creche on permanent display across from the Rectory entrance in the hallway between the church and rectory. It was established there as a permanent memorial to the late Countess Bernadine Murphy Donahue, whose munificence helped to build St. Basil's. The creche comes from the Abruzzi Italian family for whom it was constructed in 1880 and whose members and workers from the figurines in the creche.