St. Vincent de Paul Church, a familiar downtown landmark and one of the city’s oldest Catholic churches, will no longer house a parish as of July 1 but will continue as an additional worship site, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Archbishop William E. Lori said in a decree issued over the weekend that the archdiocese is moving forward with plans to merge St. Vincent’s with St. Leo the Great, another historic church located a half-mile away in Little Italy.

Lori cited a dwindling number of Catholic households in the St. Vincent parish, a decline in Mass attendance, the proximity of four other parishes within a mile, and a limited number of volunteers due to an aging congregation.

“It is my opinion that left to itself, St. Vincent de Paul parish will only continue to decline with the resultant diminishing of pastoral ministry and sacramental life,” he said in the decree. “Merging with St. Leo the Great will allow the great opportunity to continue and even strengthen the ministries which are presently offered for the parishioners of St. Vincent de Paul parish.”

The decree said parishioners had until March 7 to appeal the decision.

While the news hit some parishioners hard, the church will not be permanently closing its doors. Rather, it has been added to the list of churches considered “additional worship sites” — no longer its own parish but continuing as a place where parishioners can gather each week for services.

“It will be open and maintain it’s normal mass schedule — ministries will continue as usual," said Christian Kendzierski, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Members of the merged parish will also see new leadership in the coming months. Rev. Bernie Carman, the pastor of St. Leo’s, and Rev. Ray Chase, the pastor at St. Vincent de Paul, are both retiring, according to a spokesperson for the archdiocese. One pastor will oversee the newly merged parish.

Described as the “oldest Catholic parish church in the city,” St. Vincent was founded in 1840 to serve Irish laborers east of the Jones Falls. The church was consecrated by Archbishop Gibbons in 1879.

With its white Georgian tower, St. Vincent’s, located near the entrance to Interstate 83, is a familiar site to Baltimoreans. Both St. Vincent’s and St. Leo’s, which was established in 1881, are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Despite their lengthy histories and proximity, the churches are quite different. St. Vincent’s draws liberal Catholics and warmly welcomes LGBTQ people, as it did at a recent Mass of Welcome and Love on Feb. 16; St. Leo’s was founded by Italian immigrants and hosts an annual Italian festival.

The recent announcement about St. Vincent’s follows a year in which the archdiocese announced plans to merge parishes and close churches in response to declining Mass attendance and significant building maintenance costs.

After holding a series of public meetings, the archdiocese finalized its consolidation plan, called Seek the City, and began the process of closing nearly half of 59 churches in the city and parts of Baltimore County.

Most of the affected churches had to merge by December, but the archdiocese gave parishioners at St. Vincent’s and St. Leo’s more time to take in the merger, work out a plan and appeal the decision if needed, said Bishop Bruce Lewandowski, who has overseen the process.

An interparish committee has been working for months, Lewandowski said. While he acknowledged the process can be “heart-wrenching,” he thinks the merger will benefit the wider community.

“There are a lot of gifts in each of the parishes, a lot of wonderful people,” he said, including “the richness of the Italian community and their traditions and customs” and the “tremendous work of service to the poor and people on the margin of society” done by the ministries at St. Vincent de Paul.

Members of St. Vincent’s and St. Leo’s have met more than eight times, according to the decree.

Al Reichelt, who is on the interparish committee, said members of St. Vincent’s and St. Leo’s are strong advocates of maintaining both churches as worship sites. The committee is also figuring out how it can best merge while maintaining the charisms of both institutions.

Maureen Daly, a parishioner at St. Vincent, said St. Vincent de Paul parish is an “essential part” of the archdiocese for its service-driven advocacy work.

Said Daly: “I hope the Archdiocese will allow St. Vincent de Paul parish to continue this evangelizing work spreading the gospel of Catholic Social Justice Teaching.”

Reporter Julie Scharper contributed to this report.