Abandoned Hungarian Church in Detroit's Delray Neighborhood

WARNING: Under no circumstances should you enter this property. By doing so you risk bodily harm and/or prosecution for trespassing on private property.

Crumbling, decaying, and wasting away – the "Görög katolikus magyar templom" - translated, means “Greek Catholic Hungarian Church” - is an Historical landmark in the Delray neighborhood of Detroit, located at 431 Harbaugh Street. The church opened in 1922. Closed and shut down in 2013, it sits empty on the neighborhood corner of Harbaugh and South streets.

The church is surrounded by houses in an isolated section that was meant to be platted for residences and small shops...but that's where it ended – none were built, and the church sticks out among this small clump of ten houses. The church went along for the next four decades, until in the early 60s the name was changed to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church but with the same congregation.

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By the 1970s, Delray lost many of their inhabitants, partly due to death and pollution. According to eherg.com, “The City of Detroit decided Delray would become one of the state’s most industrialized and polluted neighborhoods. Before doing this, they didn’t ask residents what they thought or offer them an arm to leave the neighborhood if they wanted to. Citizens of Delray were abandoned by their city in favor of the taxes brought in by large corporations that were killing their neighbors with pollution.”

It was announced in October 1986 that the church was up for sale.

From 1996 and throughout the early 2000s, after being sold and undergoing a few more name changes, the parish only consisted of just a few members. To maintain the church during ever-rising costs, it was decided to shut down the church permanently.

By 2013, that was it.....it closed. Over the years the church continuously decayed and was subjected to trespassers and vandals. Residents made a brave effort to save the church but with most of the neighbors now gone, it just wasn't enough. Once again, according to eherg.com, “The neighborhood continues to lose population, the pollution hasn’t improved, and the city pretends people don’t live in Delray.”

The gallery below shows images of this once-impressive (deteriorating, but still impressive) temple.