“The Church Will Continue to Be a Church”: Dublin’s Christ Church Leeson Park Is Sold to the Romanian Orthodox

• The Church of Ireland sold Christ Church Leeson Park in Dublin to the Romanian Orthodox Church
• The select vestry decided the building was too large for the parish
• It was deconsecrated in March 2025 after a final Church of Ireland service
• The buyers cited support from Romania’s Department for Romanians Abroad, donors and their community

A Victorian church in Dublin has changed hands between denominations rather than leaving religious use, the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough announced in September 2025. Christ Church Leeson Park has been sold to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The parish’s select vestry decided to sell because the building was too large for the parish’s needs. It was deconsecrated in March 2025, after a final Church of Ireland service at which Archbishop Michael Jackson preached.

The church began as the chapel of the Molyneux Asylum in the 1860s, was rebuilt and renamed Christ Church Leeson Park in 1874, became a parish in 1892 and was united with St Bartholomew’s in 1972. It closed to regular worship in 2007 and reopened for Wednesday Eucharists from 2008.

Canon Andrew McCroskery, vicar of St Bartholomew’s and Christ Church Leeson Park, welcomed the outcome. “The church will continue to be a church – an outcome that so many of us had both hoped and prayed for,” he said. The Romanian Orthodox Diocese said the purchase was made possible through support from the Department for Romanians Abroad, donor contributions and the sacrifice of its community, and that the building would become the heart of Romanian Orthodoxy in Ireland and Iceland.

The sale shows a pattern that Jamaican congregations in Britain know well. Many Caribbean churches in London and Birmingham worship in buildings bought from, or rented from, declining historic denominations, and migrant communities often raise money together to buy them. For a selling parish, a buyer who keeps a church in worship can be the best result even if it is not the highest bid. For a buying community, pooling diaspora funds with help from home can put a landmark within reach.

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