The shell of the new St. Raphael the Archangel Church is up in Old Mill Creek, but this is not just any new parish building under construction. The building includes the façade of the now-demolished St. John of God Church from the South Side and will include the interior of the now-closed St. Peter Canisius Church on North Avenue. St. Raphael, the newest parish in the archdiocese, undertook an effort to give new life to the closed churches by recycling their materials in a new structure. It also enabled the parish to build a classical structure at a fraction of the present-day cost. “Nothing like this has been built in the Archdiocese of Chicago for a hundred years,” Father John Jamnicky, pastor of St. Raphael’s, told the Catholic New World during an open house at the new building on Jan. 27. Jamnicky was referring to the quality of workmanship that exists in the façade of St. John of God, which includes a front balcony, bell towers, three bells and 20 wood doors, each of which stand 11 feet tall. Of the doors, Jamnicky said, “They would cost you $15,000 a piece for each door if you were to buy them.” The pastor said he hopes what is being done at St. Raphael’s could be a model for other parishes around the country. “Throughout the country people have been contacting us because they are in the same situation,” he said. Many dioceses have church buildings in inner cities that are going unused that could be given new life if parts are used in other areas of the dioceses where the population has shifted. “If we can make this work it can be a prototype for other dioceses and archdioceses across the country,” he said. The church will hold 900 people and should be operational in a year, while construction continues on the steeples and bells, the exterior colonnades and organ. The idea to use the façade of St. John of God, designed by architect Henry J. Schlacks, actually came from an off-hand comment made by Cardinal George when he came to officially open St. Raphael Parish in Antioch in 2007, Jamnicky said. After working for months to create a viable worship site in an old machine shed, the pastor remarked that it was time to start thinking about a permanent church. Cardinal George said that he should give them St. John of God, Jamnicky recalled. The pastor was aware of the church and had a similar idea. In the machine shed worship site, the parish already was using pews, statues, confessionals, an altar and other things pulled from closed parish buildings, so they were open to the idea of giving new life to items from closed churches. It cost $2 million to remove the façade of St. John of God and rebuild it in Old Mill Creek. The entire project will cost $15 million and the parish is still raising funds for construction. Jamnicky believes a project like this would cost around $150 million if it were being built from scratch. A parish couldn’t afford to build a church of this quality today, he said. Architect Simon Batistich said “it was fun” to work on this project even though many people told them “it can’t be done.” “It’s not rebuilding a church, it’s taking pieces of two churches and making a new church,” Batistich said. The interior fittings, including marble furnishings, pews and stained-glass windows, will come from St. Peter Canisius Church on North Avenue, which closed in 2007. The interior of St. John of God was not usable — the stained-glass windows were missing, much of the interior was demolished and the altar was plaster and couldn’t be moved. The highlevel of craftsmanship that went into St. John of God exists in the interior of St. Peter Canisius, said Jamnicky. The stained glass from St. Peter Canisius is “museum quality” and “worth over $2 million,” Jamnicky said. The church is being built with modern innovations and meeting current building codes while preserving the unique work and architecture of the older churches. The bell towers were even reconstructed to withstand an earthquake. “This is the only church in the Archdiocese of Chicago built under seismic specifications,” Jamnicky said. “This church is going to stand for the next hundred, 200 years.” Keeping with the theme of giving new life to existing beauty, the Austin Organ that will be installed in the parish loft came from the Medinah Temple. Three bells for the second tower were acquired from St. Simeon Parish in Bellwood and the stations of the cross came from Blessed Sacrament Church on 22nd Street and Kedzie Avenue. Parishioner Bob Eberhardt sold part of his farm land to the archdiocese to build St. Raphael and called the church “awesome.” “It’s like God calling us,” he said of the building. “We’re all excited,” he said of the parish community. “We just wish we had more money to get it finished faster.” Former parishioners of St. John of God and St. Peter Canisius have visited St. Raphael’s on different occasions and have told Jamnicky that they are happy their old church buildings are being used again. There are two niches on the front of the church exterior that were vacant at St. John of God but Jamnicky said the parish is going to put statues of St. John of God and St. Peter Canisius there to remember the structures of the past that helped create this structure of the future. “This new St. Raphael the Archangel is the wedding of these two churches,” he said.