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• 1 media/Holy Trinity South Bend modern view 2000s.png 2019-07-17T09:51:30-07:00 Church of the Holy Trinity, South Bend 32 image_header 2023-07-24T15:08:28-07:00 In 1911, after Bishop John Hazen White had left Michigan City and moved to South Bend, he began to take an interest in the inclusion of immigrant groups within the Episcopal Church who were not traditionally part of the Anglican Communion. A group of Hungarian immigrants approached him about being included in the diocese, and after consulting with the Standing Committee, the bishop consented to their request. A former Catholic priest, the Rev. Victor von Kubinyi, a Hungarian count and godson of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, applied for ordination as an Episcopalian. White delayed action for nine months to test Kubinyi's resolve before admitting him to the priesthood. Afterward, in 1913, 84 Hungarian families signed a petition to organize an Episcopal mission, which was immediately organized as the Trinity Hungarian Mission. Church minutes would be kept in Hungarian through 1948. The parish opened with 350 members, and White confirmed a class of 28 in the first year. Kubinyi requested permission to translate the 1892 prayerbook into Hungarian, and the Rev. John MacKenzie of Howe Military School and William Leonard, Bishop of Ohio, offered financial help. Kubinyi helped organize a variety of parish groups and assisted parishioners in becoming citizens.
  
  The congregation met initially in a National Guard Armory building until Kubinyi raised the funds to erect a prefabricated church structure made by the Mershon and Morley Company of Saginaw, Michigan. The building, located at West Colfax Avenue and Elm Street, was dedicated by Bishop White on Christmas Eve, 1914. The congregation remained poor, however, and Bishop White supplied it with candlesticks, vestments, and a chalice. Many of the congregation were without jobs and had no money to support either the church or themselves. During the severe winter of 1914-15, Mary May White of St. James, South Bend, helped raise money for food, while a wealthy philanthropist in Indianapolis donated money for Christmas gifts for the children. The church building later caught fire.
  
  Against the backdrop of this hardscrabble beginning, fissures developed by 1918 between White and Kubinyi, and the priest resigned. Kubinyi then denounced the ministry of the Episcopal Church in a public document, leaving some members understandably demoralized. White wrote to the Rev. Edwin E. Smith, asking that he take charge of the mission. A bachelor and late vocational priest, Smith maintained the services of the church ably into the 1920s. He organized large dinner-dances with Hungarian food as local fundraisers. He could not speak Hungarian, so the services were led in English with the hymns in Hungarian.
  
  In 1938, Bishop Campbell Gray appointed the Rev. Harold G. Kappes as the new vicar. Although not a Hungarian, Kappes worked hard to learn the language, and he inaugurated a Grape Harvest Festival, which included dances in traditional dress. The church building had fallen into disrepair by this date and was condemned by the city. A new building campaign was launched in 1940, but post-war inflation left only enough to build a church edifice without a rectory or parish hall. Ground was broken for the new building at the corner of Prast Boulevard and North Olive Street on 11 July 1948, and in October, the cornerstone was laid by Bishop Mallett after the congregation had marched ceremonially from the old church. The building has an A-frame design, inspired by the abbey church at Three Rivers, Michigan, where Kappes had studied for his vocation. The new building was dedicated at Easter, 1950.
  
  In 1955, for unknown reasons, Bishop Mallett removed Kappes abruptly as vicar. He was replaced by the Rev. James Halfhil, who served until 1961 when he was forced to resign for reasons of health. His successor, the Rev. James Greer, served until 1968 when he left after domestic issues. The Rev. William Hibbert arrived and had a successful ministry, during which he worked with youth and chartered a Boy Scouts troop, earning him recognition for his efforts from the Presiding Bishop. In 1970, the mission was admitted formally as a parish and the following year was renamed the Church of the Holy Trinity. Hibbert served until 1984 before leaving for Indianapolis. The Rev. Bradley McCormick served as interim rector until the election of the Rev. Jack Bliven in 1985. Lay ministry expanded and new windows were installed before Bliven was forced to resign on account of poor health in 1989. He died a year later.
  
  The Rev. Paul Bradshaw served as interim until the Rev. Tina Velthuizen was called as rector in 1991. She was the first female priest to serve in the diocese and arrived as a result of the parishioners petitioning Bishop Gray specifically for a woman priest. Gray had initially said he would only approve a woman priest if she were raised up in the diocese, but he decided to change that policy and approved Velthuizen, who came from the Diocese of Western Michigan. A few parishioners left the parish on her arrival, but many returned and accepted her ministry after getting to know her. She would prove a popular priest. During her rectorate, the parish created a community garden. After suffering from a long illness, she announced her retirement in 2014.
  
  The parish was last led by the Rev. Terri Bays, who also served the diocese as Missioner for Transitions and Governance. In September 2022, the parish voted to close.
  
  Clergy:
  
  Victor Alexander von Kubinyi, 1913-1918
  Edwin Ellsworth Smith, 1919-1939
  Harold George Kappes, 1939-1955
  James Halfhill, 1956-1961
  Reginald Mallett II, 1961-1962
  James G. Greer, 1963-1968
  William Chattin Hibbert, 1968-1984
  J. Bradley McCormick, 1984
  Jack C. Bliven, 1984-1989
  Paul Bradshaw, 1990
  Teunis "Tina" Velthuizen, 1991-2014
  Terri Bays, 2014-2022
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 1 2020-09-18T19:39:44-07:00 Rev. Victor Alexander von Kubinyi 5 plain 2023-05-30T10:31:35-07:00 The Rev. Victor von Kubinyi, also styled as Victor de Kubinyi, was a Hungarian-American cleric who was affiliated with many different apostolic churches. He was born in Epserjes Saros, Hungary, on 8 July 1873, the son of Janos and Matild Hermin (Foldvary) von Kubinyi. The family was part of the nobility, and he was the godson of the emperor Franz Joseph. He attended Royal University in Budapest and Benedictine College, where he studied for the priesthood. Afterward, he was ordained as a deacon and priest in the Catholic Church in March 1897 by Bishop Gyorgy Csaszka, Bishop of Esztergom (Budapest). He served several churches in Hungary and taught religion in the high school at Szabodka. He was knighted in 1904 by the Sovereign Military Hospitaler, Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
  
  For unknown reasons, Kubinyi decided to go to America and arrived in New York City on 17 June 1906, settling initially in Hoboken, New Jersey. From 1906 to 1909 he served as a priest in a Catholic Church in South River. In 1909, he published a book titled The King of Rome, a biography of the pope, but his dissatisfaction with the church had begun to grow. He moved to New York City briefly in 1910 and became curate of St. Nicholas Church, where he was enumerated on the census. Later that year, however, he returned to New Jersey to serve a church in Newark and remained until 1911.
  
  At the request of a group of disaffected Catholics in South Bend, Indiana, Kubinyi moved there in 1912 to offer his leadership in the midst of a local schism. These former members of St. Stephen's Hungarian Roman Catholic Church had set themselves against the Catholic bishop, Herman J. Alerding, who had dissolved the church's board of trustees in April 1911. Rioting had ensued as had threats to burn down the church. Aldering closed the church temporarily and eventually replaced its unpopular pastor, Fr. Froehlich, with a new priest, Fr. Louis Kovacs, but the troubles continued, including threats on the lives of the priests. Desperate to escape the situation, Kovacs exchanged pulpits with Fr. Alexander Varlaky of Pennsylvania in April 1912.
  
  Kubinyi, in the meantime, gained the support of most of the disaffected members of St. Stephen's. His supporters asked Alerding to appoint him to St. Stephen's, but the bishop refused, denying Kubinyi access to Catholic facilities. Facing widespread criticism and slander for his move to South Bend from several Hungarian-American newspapers, Kubinyi denied he was any longer a Roman priest and began building a new church of his own on the southwest side of the city known as Sacred Heart Independent Catholic Church. Alerding excommunicated Kubinyi and all Catholics who had left St. Stephen's.
  
  In 1913, Kubinyi announced the formation of a new church, the Hungarian National Church, and in association with it, was consecrated a bishop, though the leaders of Sacred Heart had refused the use of their facility for the consecration. Undeterred, he gave an address in the local opera house on 4 May 1913 titled "True Religion," declaring himself a Hungarian Catholic and likening his new church affiliation, the so-called American Catholic Church, to the Episcopal, Orthodox, and Old Order Catholic churches. The American Catholic Church had no such apostolic legacy, however. It had been founded by the self-styled Bishop Joseph Rene Vilatte, whose consecration had been declared invalid by Rome. In the highly-charged atmosphere of the Hungarian immigrant community, the new church was seen as a viable alternative to Catholicism, though Vilatte's spurious credentials were questioned by many as was Kubinyi's own consecration. In June 1913, Kubinyi was consecrated again as a bishop, this time by Archbishop-Primate Arnold Harris Mathew of the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain.
  
  None of these consecrations had proved satisfactory to Kubinyi himself, and by December 1913, he had renounced his ministry in the American Catholic Church and turned to Bishop John Hazen White for ordination as an Episcopal priest. Heartened by the attention, White received him in a ceremony in St. James Episcopal Church on 7 December 1913 and was impressed by his connections and ability. By the end of the month White placed him as priest-in-charge of the new Church of the Holy Trinity, an experiment of sorts in missionary outreach to a non-English immigrant community. It was often nicknamed the "Trinity Hungarian Mission."
  
  Kubinyi stayed at Holy Trinity for several years, helping to build up the congregation among his followers. He wrote several books and received White's permission to translate part of the Book of Common Prayer into Hungarian in 1915. He married Florence Marie Telmany in New York City on 25 April 1916. By 1918, however, Kubinyi's relationship with Bishop White had soured. He renounced his ministry in the Episcopal Church on 23 September and was deposed by Bishop White on 15 November. White called Kubinyi's defection a betrayal and "one of the most severe blows of my Episcopate." He charged the priest with borrowing $10,000 in both small and large sums from members of the congregation who could ill afford to lend it and then "went off and left them to shift for themselves."
  
  Whether or not he was guilty of theft, Kubinyi had decided to return to the American Catholic Church and resume his office as bishop. He and his wife moved to the Bronx, where he continued to write and to take up painting. His creations became known as "psychographs." In October 1924, he was installed as Ordinary of the Eastern Atlantic States of the American Catholic Church in St. Illuminator's Armenian Apostolic Cathedral. A month later he was installed in yet another ceremony as a member of the Cathedral Chapter of the African Orthodox Church.
  
  Within a year, however, Kubinyi again renounced the American Catholic Church and moved to Washington, D.C. On 13 May 1925, he was consecrated in the North American Old Roman Catholic Church. By 1930 he was divorced and living in Manhattan. He was consecrated in the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1932, but he continued to make enemies within the national Hungarian-American community. About 1937, a book was published titled Wanted: Fugitive from Justice, Victor de Kubinyi, alias Hungarian Bluebeard, Ex-priest, Ex-bishop, new Fugitive from Justice under Criminal Indictment for Forgery and Embezzlement.
  
  Kubinyi returned to Hungary before World War II, but he died on a visit to the United States on 17 September 1966.
  
  Victor von Kubinye correspondence file 1
  
  Victor von Kubinye correspondence file 2
  
  Victor von Kubinye correspondence file 3
  
  Victor von Kubinye correspondence file 4
  
  Timeline