ARTIST’S RENDERING of St. Callistus Chapel area at Christ Cathedral.

The St. Callistus Catholic Church, founded in 1961 in Garden Grove and closed in 2013 when the parish moved to the nearby Christ Cathedral – originally Crystal Cathedral – may be gone, but it’s not forgotten.

In an effort to preserve that memory, the Diocese of Orange County, now centered there, has begun the process of raising funds to build a new St. Callistus Chapel and Crypts underneath the Cathedral. 

The new chapel would offer seating for 250 people and be the final resting place for the bishops of the diocese.

Leading the campaign to finance these additions to the Christ Cathedral is the Our Lady of La Vang Foundation, which takes its name from the church’s observance of the appearance of the Virgin Mary in La Vang, Vietnam in 1798.

The OLLV was successful in raising more that $17 million for the Our Lady of La Vang Shrine on the Cathedral campus, which was dedicated in July 2021.

St. Callistus had a multi-ethnic parish with many Vietnamese and Hispanic members.

The original St. Callistus site, located at Lewis Street and Garden Grove Boulevard, is now occupied by a single-family neighborhood.