Mass celebrates 120 years

Officiating at Mass at an Easter service in Broad Bay celebrating 120 years of historic Polish church Mary Queen of Peace Church is Dunedin Bishop the Most Rev Michael Dooley.

A morning tea was served with Swieconka, a Polish tradition where baskets of Easter foods are blessed, along with Polish Easter cakes.

The church opened on April 16, 1899, in Waihola, south of Dunedin. The majority of worshippers at the time were settlers from Poland.

After membership declined, church authorities decided to move the building to Broad Bay on Otago Peninsula, where the Catholic community was without a church.

It was reconsecrated on November 7, 1948.