St. Hedwig’s in Chester is no longer a church. Some of its buildings may be redeveloped into multifamily housing.

St. Hedwig’s, which served Chester’s Polish Catholic community for generations, is officially no longer a church. And some of the former parish’s buildings may soon become multifamily housing.

Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez last week issued a decree approving the “relegation” of the building to “profane but not sordid use effective January 1, 2026.”

In other words, the building will “no longer be designated as a Roman Catholic church,” according to a Sunday announcement from the archdiocese.

Pérez’s decree merely capped off a process that had been in the works for years.

In the early 1990s, amid decreasing attendance, the archdiocese merged several Delaware County parishes. St. Hedwig’s became a part of Clifton Heights’ Sacred Heart Parish, which also serves the Polish community, and its building became a place of worship under the care of Sacred Heart.

That marked the official end of the parish, which was established in 1902 and was named after Hedwig of Silesia, a 13th-century duchess of Greater Poland.

But financial pressures — including an estimated $60,000 repair for a failed boiler — and pastoral challenges continued to mount, and church officials moved to unload the historic property.

“While those worshipping at Saint Hedwig’s had been contributing generously for the upkeep of their church, their donations proved insufficient for the church’s ongoing maintenance needs,” the archdiocese said Sunday. “Multiple repairs have been financed by Sacred Heart Parish, which itself faced an operating deficit in 2024.”

The final Mass was held in 2023.

“For 121 years, St. Hedwig’s has been there to serve the Polish people,” the church announced in a Facebook post at the time. “We have celebrated baptisms, communions, confirmations, marriages, and ultimately funerals. We have been forever faithful.”

A parishioner at the time lamented the demise of a church that had served the area’s Polish community for more than a century.

“We sing in Polish and pray in Polish and we still have a very tight-knit community that maintains this church,” Judy Kuchinski of Chester told 6abc.

The archdiocese in January sold a property across the street from the church that included a former school, rectory, and convent to a group of real estate investors, according to Delaware County records.

“While the sale of property adjacent to Saint Hedwig Church in January 2025 provided additional capital to Sacred Heart, this money will be needed to help offset the regular deficits that accrue in financing parish operations,” the archdiocese said Sunday.

Mario Rivello, a multifamily housing developer who has done other work in Chester, is leading the project.

“We’re very active in that city, and this may be a property that we further develop based on approval process,” Rivello said in an interview Sunday.

Rivello said the investors’ goal is to convert the buildings into multifamily housing, which he said is “our expertise.” They have no plans to demolish the buildings, he said.

“We’d rather not,” Rivello said. “The archdiocese — the bones of the buildings that they sell — usually these properties are in good condition or they’re well-built."

The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.