Page 199 - ROCHESTER

St. JoSePH’S cHurcH
St. Joseph’s Church began as the “church on the hill,”
serving German Catholic immigrants who were moving to the Rochester area.
The rst 12 families met in an existing building when St. Joseph was established as a mission church in 1860. Its rst structure was built on the same Pen eld Road site in 1872 and dedicated Nov. 3 of that year by Father James M. Early, vicar general of the Diocese of Rochester. The church was elevated from a mission church to a full parish in 1914 with the appointment of its rst pastor, Father William V. Gruenauer, who served until his
death in 1948.
A re in 1947 damaged the original church. While repairs were being made, an altar from St. Louis Church in Pittsford was borrowed for temporary use at Masses celebrated in the town hall.
A temporary building and four classrooms were erected on Pen eld Road in 1957. The adjacent St. Joseph’s School, which continues in operation, was built three years later.
As parishioners began to experience overcrowding, a parish rectory, convent, school addition and new permanent church were constructed in the 1960s at 43 Gebhardt Road. Bishop Fulton Sheen dedicated the church on Nov. 24, 1968, and the temporary church was converted into a parish hall.
Bishop Emeritus James M. Moynihan, who died March 6, 2017, was St. Joseph’s pastor from 1976 to 1992, just a few years before Pope John Paul II named him ninth bishop of the neighboring Diocese of Syracuse in 1995.
In recent years, construction of a new baptismal font and other renovations have been completed.
197