As of noon Sunday, St. Simon Catholic and St. Mary Catholic churches were no more.

After 170 years at St. Simon and 134 years at St. Mary, both churches closed their respective doors in ceremonies to allow the formation of Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church set for Aug. 31.

Sunday’s closing Mass at St. Simon brought many to the pews, with the whole congregation filing out to close the doors to one last time. It will reopen Aug. 31 as Our Lady of Hope. For St. Mary is was the last Sunday of service for the venerable building, as Sunday afternoon purple ribbons were put on the doors of both churches.

“In this church, we have encountered Jesus Christ in words and sacrament and each other,” Rev. Gordon Mann said outside St. Simon church. “But now after many generations of faith, with thanks to God who brought us here, I declare this church to be closed. We move forward in faith to the parish that awaits us, Our Lady of Hope.”

Assisting Rev. Mann during the closing Mass was Rev. Jim Merold, who has come from Chicago on several occasions to help Mann during ceremonies. Merold, in the sermon, cited a radio program he had heard on his way to Washington that said when a new church is merged, 10 to 15 percent of the congregation goes away. And among some Catholics in the city, there has been some discontent with the merger.

“This is a kind of church that you strive to build in Washington and surrounding communities,” Merold said. “It is thriving. It is open. It is welcoming, truly Catholic. It is able to see the sign of the times and respond courageously to that, making bold moves to strengthen the church.”

In the program for the ceremonies, one of the reasons for the merger was “the breakdown of the wall of animosity that separated the two parishes for over a century.”

Other reasons noted in the closing program were finances, education at Washington Catholic schools, the future when a possible decline in priests and the idea that the Catholic community should operate as one community.

St. Mary, although it has a Spanish Mass, has more Hispanic parishioners than its counterpart. Sunday, the Spanish Mass was held at the Washington Catholic Middle School gymnasium.

The move to combine the two churches has been in the works for years, with the two combined into the Catholic Community of Washington since 2007.

For the rest of August, Sunday Masses will be held in the WC middle school gym while the Knights of Columbus hall, 319 E. Main St., will hold weekday Mass. Any funerals during this time will be held at St. Peter’s in Montgomery.

Mann and members of the church were starting the process of moving chairs after Sunday’s Mass at St. Simon. He said over the month, artifacts from St. Mary will be moved into the former St. Simon building.

“We’re basically using this building but we’re filling it with the things from St. Mary as we merge the two parishes together,” Mann said. “That’s probably the biggest change (parishioners) are going to see, seeing those artifacts up here.”

On Aug. 31, the Mass of Inauguration for Our Lady of Hope will begin with Revs. Mann and Merold, along with Bishop Gerald Gettlefinger with the Evansville Diocese, leading the congregation from the middle school gym to the new church.

Along the way, a statue of St. Theodore Guerin will be dedicated. Guerin, one of the founders of Washington Catholic schools, was canonized as a saint in 2006.