September 19, 2007history
1905-2000
The Half Life Church opened in 1905 in a major east coast city as a parish of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese. It was closed in 2000 in order to consolidate with St. Carthage. The new congregation was renamed St. Cyprian. At the time of its consolidation there were 1,188 individuals and 725 registered families under the new name of worship.
The property was sold by
the Archdiocese in October of 2000 for $1 million to The Folleri
Group, a New York real-estate firm which specialized in scooping
up land abandoned by the Catholic Church.
But nothing has been done with the building or property after
this sale. Since this time there has been a fire in the school
building and much vandalism across the property.
On Sunday, December 1, 2006 St Raymond of Penafort Catholic Church held its first open house in Springfield, Pennsylvania. What makes this church tie in with the Half Life Church is the details in its structure: the church had become a way to preserve stained glass windows, statues and altars from various places of worship in New York and Pennsylvania, closed because of demographic changes. One such location was the Half Life Church.
In the transept area, four stained glass windows are on each of the two walls. These windows are directly from the Irish Catholic Half Life Church, originally installed in 1928. Four of the windows deal with the triumph of the Catholic Church, and the other four are based on the last judgment. St. Raymond’s also purchased the main altar and altar table from the same location.
Two five-foot tall solid marble statue shrines to St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother adorn the sides of this main altar, also from this once great church. Both statues are built in a Siena-colored marble which is unavailable today.