An Albany community is recovering and looking to the future, months after the loss of their church.
A snow-covered pile of brick rubble and broken wooden beams is all that remains of what was once a historic Black church in Albany’s South End. Elijah Missionary Baptist Church was damaged in November after a fire caused by a space heater tore through the roof and ordered demolished shortly thereafter after inspection showed the flames had gone up the bell tower, making it unsafe.
Founded as Our Lady Help of Christians for the South End’s German Catholic community, the church on Second Ave had been a community anchor since the cornerstone was laid in June of 1880. Even after then-Roman Catholic Bishop of Albany Howard Hubbard closed the space in 2002, the church earned new life as Elijah Missionary Baptist Church under Bishop Avery Comithier.
Comithier, an Albany County native, has been a pastor for more than three decades and is the founder of Pastors on Patrol, where local religious figures work with the city’s police department to help prevent crime. He says he’s grateful he didn’t die in the blaze.
“I stayed in the rectory attached to the church, but I was able to get out with just the clothing on my back, and had to stand out on Second Avenue and just look at it and look at hard work go up in flames,” Comithier said.
Comithier says, despite losing the structure, the Elijah community remains strong.
“To have the neighbor and neighborhood; that's the most important thing. The building where we are at right now, that's great, but it's the greater building that's inside of us as a people. People need each other, and my desire is to see the city come together like it's never had before. And the only way to do that is to be like-minded,” Comithier said.
He tells WAMC he’s been visited by city and state leaders, including Mayor Kathy Sheehan.
“After the fire, right after, the Attorney General came down, Letitia James, just to check on me, little old me. She came with her staff and checked on me, and she said, ‘whatever you need,’” Comithier said.
For the time being, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has allowed the congregation to hold services at St. Francis of Assisi on Fourth Ave. Without a permanent home now, the congregation and neighborhood residents are forging a new way forward. Albany County Legislator Carolyn McLaughlin, whose First District in the city’s South End included the former church, says the wound is still raw.
“My heart grieves every time I drive by and I see the blood, the heart of God bleeding as I drive by,” McLaughlin said.
She recalls watching flames coming out of the steeple from her home nearby, calling it one of the most unfortunate things she’s seen during her life.
“The Bible tells us; there's a verse that talks about God will give you beauty for ashes so on that pile of rubble that we're seeing down there right now, let's look at that scene as an opportunity for growth and progress in that neighborhood. Let's see it as you've lost a building, but you have not lost the human capital that is in that neighborhood,” McLaughlin said.
In the week following the fire, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany supported the church, allowing them to host mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Father Dave Mickiewicz is the cathedral’s rector. An Albany Police Department chaplain alongside Reverend Comithier, he was concerned when he heard about the fire.
“I knew Avery was there. I didn't know whether he was hurt at that point in time or anything like that. It was only after I called him,” Mickiewicz said.
Mickiewicz says, while it hadn’t been a Catholic church in more than two decades, the area faithful still hold fond memories of the church.
“You get talking, and they remember the grade school. They went to grade school there. They remember the sisters. They remember the priests. All this memory is coming back to them, and that's an important part, of being human. But there was a sadness about it, and watching the church slowly be taken down within a few days, and now there's this empty space,” Mickiewicz said.
Comithier says what once was won’t be forgotten.
“Where the church is down, I would love to put a shrine. I've seen many shrines. It's like an arch, and you can walk inside it with candles, and where you can pray and remember and reflect,” Comithier said.
Despite uncertainty over the future, he’s proud of the community.
“I’ve had so many funerals in the place that burned down, from drug dealers to gangbangers, all sorts of people that other churches turned down their funeral and I said 'yes,' because people are still people,” Comithier said.
