St. Casimir's is a beautiful Church, outstanding in design and decoration. 
Modeled after churches in Istanbul and the former Yugoslavia, it is one of only three like 
it in the world. The art is beyond compare. Further, because Karol Cardinal Wojtyla
celebrated Mass there in 1976 and because there is a picture of Our Lady of 
Czestochowa given in gratitude by Cardinal Wojtyla, St. Casimir's stands as an 
extremely special place. A bronze plaque in the church commemorates the historic visit 
of Wojtyla, who would become Pope John Paul II only a year after his visit to St. 
Casimir's. The traditional Polish devotions and customs are observed with absolute 
beauty.  In March of 2011, St. Casimir's parish closed and became an Oratory.  This is 
the only oratory in Buffalo that still has a regular Sunday mass, which is celebrated 
at 10 am.  Funerals, baptisms, weddings, and other sacraments are celebrated at the 
oratory as well.  

The organ at St. Casimir's was originally a 3 manual Tellers-Kent of about 30 ranks.  
During the 1960's, the organ was worked on by Steven Po-Chedley and Sons of Buffalo, 
NY, and then significantly rebuilt by Carl Stradtman in the mid 1970's.  The organ was 
originally in a divided case, and the divided case exists with the original speaking 
facade pipes, however, about 3/4 of the organ is completely exposed in the center of 
the two cases.  Neo-baroque elements were incorporated in this rebuild.  All of the 
nicking was filled in as well of re-voicing on almost everything.  The Choir division 
was also turned into an unenclosed Positive.  Even most of the Swell division is 
unenclosed.  One of the most bizarre facts about his organ is that the only ranks that 
are enclosed in the Swell box are the 8' Salicional, the 8' Voix Celeste, and the 8' 
Posuane.  Several ranks were also discarded, and can be found just strewn about in a 
storage room in the rear gallery.  The discarded ranks included a Vox Humana, an Oboe, 
and I believe a Viole d'Orchestre. A new Cavaille-Coll style amphitheater console was 
also installed, however the combination action was never installed.  Not even the 
general cancel works.   Unfortunately, a good amount of the organ was damaged by 
water, which makes the organ in extremely bad dis-repair.  There are no immediate 
plans to repair the organ, however significant money is being put into the oratory to 
fix other major problems of the building, so there is a small chance that within the 
next couple years the organ may be repaired.  

Peter Gonciarz
October 2011