The History of Our Parish Church & Community

The Pauline Fathers welcome you to St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church; the largest parish staffed by Pauline Father's in the U.S.A.

With the ever-increasing population growth in the area, it became quite evident to the pastor of St. Timothy's and the Bishop of Orlando that another church was needed. Land was purchased where our church stands today and the long process of permits was initiated along with a financial campaign to build a new place of worship under the previous Bishop, The Most Reverend Norbert Dorsey followed by The Most Reverend Thomas Wenski.

Three years later with the construction of the new building well underway, our Most Reverend Bishop Wenski proceeded to seek the help of priests to serve the new parish. After many requests to the Father General of the Pauline Fathers, the order of St. Paul the 1st Hermit, Isadore Matriszewski, it was agreed that the two priests would be assigned to help in the Diocese, specifically at the new place of worship, to establish a new parish community named after St. Mark the Evangelist. This new building would be a fellowship hall that would serve as the parish church until at such time a permanent church could be built.

On Saturday at 5:00pm on September 11, 2005 a Mass of Thanksgiving and Blessing was given where Bishop Wenski welcomed the new priests, Father Simon Shaner and Father Sebastian Hanks. Many tasks lay in store for these two men of God, such as forming all the various ministries that are needed for the Liturgy and operation of the church. 

More and more people became parishioners and at the end of that September over 650 parishioners had registered. The need for a bigger permanent church had become evident with over 2,000 families registred in the parish in the years to come. With the permission of the Diocese of Orlando a campaign was started in January of 2007 to collect funds for this endeavor. The campaign was a hugh success and the dream of every parishioner to worship the Lord in a new and beautiful church was realized by the end of 2009.

In 2012 Father Sebastian returned to our parish and undertook building a Parish House right here on our church campus for the Pauline Fathers. Parishioners were able to tour the home the weekend of July 26th & 27th, 2014 and recently celebrated Bishop John Noonan's blessing on August 10, 2014 at the 10am mass.