“Almighty God, hear our prayers for the communities of St. Basil, St. Matthias, St. Denis, and St. Helen, who are here today to be united as one faith community. Increase their faith in you and in each other, and through them bless your Church. We ask this through Jesus Christ your Son.”

These words may still have a familiar ring to many of us. They should. This was the prayer that was written and offered especially for God’s blessing on the merger of our four beloved parishes into one, and on the newly formed Mary Queen of Peace Parish. Though short and humble, the prayer itself speaks volumes; it contains the roots of who we are, and how we came to be.

Those roots date back to 1897, when His Excellency William George McCloskey, the fourth bishop of Louisville, established a new parish on land purchased from J.P. and Emma Shively.
A german immigrant, and the former pastor of All Saints Church in Taylorsville, Fr. John Baptist Peifer was made the first pastor of St. Helen. As the parish continued to grow, so did the Catholic presence in the area. This led Bishop Denis O’Donaghue to identify the need for another parish a few miles to the West on Cane Run Road. Under the leadership of Fr. Andrew Zoeller, St. Denis Parish was born in 1916. In 1937, the year of the Great Flood, Louisville became an Archdiocese and Bishop John Alexander Floersh was elevated to archbishop. After World War II, as Southwest Jefferson County continued to grow and take on a more urban landscape, the need for two more parishes became clear. In 1950, now Archbishop Floersh appointed Fr. William Greisbaum as founding pastor of St. Matthias on Dixie Highway, and in 1960 St. Basil was established on Wayside Drive, under the guidance of Fr. Julian Pank.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously opined that we cannot step in the same river twice. The river is always changing, so are we, and so is Southwest Jefferson County. As a result of the demographic shifts in our area it became necessary to join our four founding parishes into one. On January 1, 2009, after much input from parishioners of all four parishes and under the leadership of Fr. Thomas Gentile, Fr. Don Ryan, and Fr. Eugene Scheich, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz issued a decree establishing a new parish, built on the faith and hard work of our predecessors, and “Entrusted to the patronage of Mary Queen of Peace.”

In his First Letter to the Corinthians Saint Paul writes: “Like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.”

Together we stand on the shoulders of giants. As we acknowledge our heritage, we must always remember our deepest roots lie with Christ and His Apostles, to whom He first entrusted His Church.