An excavator from Massarelli Demolition tears down St. Matthias Catholic Church Thursday in Evans City. The closed church caught fire earlier this year causing significant damage to the structure.

EVANS CITY — As the roof of St. Matthias Catholic Church came down Thursday, so too did a pillar of the borough. But, former parishioners say, its history, memory and sacredness will long endure.

“The building itself was not my faith, but it's a sacred place,” Rita Beitch, a member since the early 1980s, said. “The sacredness is preserved. Nobody can come in and make it a bar, an apartment building. It will always be sacred to me.”

The church, named after the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot following his betrayal of Jesus, had been a mainstay in the borough since 1889, when it was originally founded as a Methodist Episcopalian church.

Other than 10 years in the 1920s and 1930s, St. Matthias held services drawing members from Evans City and beyond. St. Matthias suffered extensive fire damage the night before a Mass honoring its May 30 anniversary.

Lee Dyer, borough council president, said he knew the community would feel a loss when the demolition permit came across his desk after the fire. “It was a piece of our history,” Dyer said. “It was another place in Evans City where people would go to, and several things have left us or are leaving us.”

This is an excerpt from an article that will appear in Friday's Butler Eagle. Subscribe online or in print to read more of the community's reaction to the demolition of the building.