Holy Emmanuel Slovak Lutheran Church (a.k.a. St. Emmanuel Slovak Lutheran Church)

Summary: This small meetinghouse, erected sometime in the 1860s or 70s (probably the latter), was one of the earliest religious buildings in the area. Just who built it, however, is something of a mystery. Some sources say the building was erected to house the Augustana Sunday School others say it housed a mission to the Swedes sponsored by the Presbyterians.  

Body: This small meetinghouse, erected sometime in the 1860s or 70s (probably the latter), was one of the earliest religious buildings in the area. Just who built it, however, is something of a mystery. Some sources say the building was erected to house the Augustana Sunday School others say it housed a mission to the Swedes sponsored by the Presbyterians. By the 1880s, however, the Swedes were a distinct minority in the Flats. Moving in were growing numbers of Slovakian and Czech immigrants who were finding jobs in the industries just upriver. By 1888, more than one hundred Bohemian and Slovakian families lived on the Flats. Religiously, Slovakia was predominantly Lutheran and Catholic. Settling in the Midwest, the Slovak Lutherans found, as did most groups upon arriving in the area, few clergymen from their own country. As a result, there simply was no option for attending a church in which the service was preached in the Czech language. Those who attended church in the area attended Trinity First German Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, a situation that was not ideal given the language barrier and the importance of the sermon and vernacular presentation of scripture that are the foundation of Lutheranism. In 1888, the Reverend Sieverson of Trinity First German Lutheran convinced a recently ordained graduate of Martin Luther Theological Seminary in New Ulm, Karol (Karl) Hauser, a Jewish convert to Lutheranism who had come to the U.S. from Moravia in 1885, to hold a service for the Czechs and Slovaks in Bohemian Flats. Pastor Hauser would help form the Slovak Lutheran congregation. In 1888, Hauser began preaching to the Bohemian Flats group, initially in Trinity First Church on the bluff.  In 1889, Hauser arranged for the congregation to buy the abandoned building on Cooper Street and Lowland Avenue in the Flats. Funding to rebuild the building into a "fine little church with an altar, pulpit, steeple, and church bell," came from several of the employers of those who lived in the Flats.

In 1908, the congregation moved across the river, erecting a brick church at Essex and Ontario Streets, SE. The Slovak language was used in the church until 1920.