Mission Statement

We, the people of St. Fabian Parish in Farmington Hills, founded as a church of believers in 1958 are a Catholic Christian caring community. We exist to worship God in Word and deed, and support each other in our common effort to be faithful to the Gospel and its values. 

St. Fabian Catholic Church recognizes the dignity and giftedness of each person as a child of God and we welcome all as brothers and sisters. As we strive to acquaint everyone with our services and ministries that are a part of our life here, we journey together in faith and joy.

Parish History

St. Fabian Parish was founded in response to the rapid population growth of the Farmington area in the early 1950s. 

In 1958, the late Edward Cardinal Mooney appointed the Reverence Francis J. Szaniawski as the founding pastor of a church to be built to serve the growing number of Catholics in what was then called Farmington Township. Many of the first parishioners came from nearby Our Lady of Sorrows Parish on Power Road. 

The church was eventually dedicated to a Roman farmer named Fabian, who went to the Vatican to witness the election of the new pope in January of the year 236 and who, through a remarkable turn of events, was himself elected the twentieth Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The first Mass of St. Fabian Parish was offered at Dunckel Middle School, a little to the west of the proposed church site, on Sunday, July 15, 1958, with a congregation of about 600 men, women, and children attending two Masses. (Since that first Mass, the membership of the parish has grown to 2300 families as of January 1997!) 

Under the direction of St. Fabian's first pastor "Father Frank" , the parish development progressed rapidly, with the building of a rectory and the plans for a permanent church being drawn up by the Fall of 1958. The ground breaking for the church took place November 1958, a month after the death of Detroit's Cardinal Mooney. The prototype church itself was completed in September of the following year and was dedicated by the new Archbishop of Detroit, the Most Reverend John Dearden. 

The original church was designed as a temporary structure, with a permanent church to be built later on an adjoining lot. "Prototype" churches were intended, by the nature of their construction, to act as multipurpose buildings after their original usefulness had been outgrown. Those future plans for a new church were never realized because the temporary church was "permanentized" by the addition of two transepts to the original church (which increased the seating to 750), and by reorienting the axis of the church (the original altar stood where the main entrance to the church now stands). This renovation, placed under the Rev. Seamus Ryan, the third pastor of St. Fabian, was completed in September 1983. The dedication of the renovated St. Fabian's was conducted once again by the now Cardinal John Dearden. 

There have been five pastors at St. Fabian. Reverend Francis Szaniawski, who founded our parish, served from 1958 to 1967. Msgr. Charles Malloy served from 1967 to 1979. Reverend Seamus Ryan served our parish family from 1979 to 1984. Reverend Norbert Kendzierski was the fourth pastor from 1984 to 1995, and Reverend Brian Chabala, who is the current pastor, came to St. Fabian in 1996. 

For more about the organizations and activities that provide the focal points for our parish community, please visit the Parish Ministries page.

A Letter From Our New Principal