When Fr. Christopher Krymski, O.S.M., was installed as the 18th pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Denver on Sept. 15, 2024, the Feast Day of Our Lady of Sorrows, he brought with him a priestly ministry shaped by art, grief, healing and devotion to the Servite tradition. His years before arriving in Colorado were marked by a consistent concern for people facing illness, loss, poverty, and spiritual uncertainty.

Fr. Krymski’s vocation began in Detroit, where he grew up in a deeply religious family. His parish, St. John Berchman, was staffed by the Servites, or Order of Friar Servants of Mary, and included a Servite grade school and high school. He spent all twelve years of his education there, graduating in 1973 from Detroit’s now-closed Servite High School, surrounded by priests and religious sisters who helped form his early sense of vocation.

Faith and creativity were present in his family life as well. His father, a tool-and-die maker, also had an artistic gift and decorated the family home with handmade Christmas figures, including life-sized tin figures for a nativity scene. His mother sewed vestments for her young son when, at three years old, he played at being a priest. Yet his childhood also included profound loss: his father died when Fr. Krymski was four, and his mother died of breast cancer when he was seventeen. Afterward, he lived with his older brother, his only sibling.

Servite Sister Faculty, Servite HS Detroit, 1963

Following graduation from the University of Detroit, Fr. Krymski entered the seminary. His brother’s humorous farewell—“You know, there’s no money in it”—became an affectionate reminder of the sacrifices involved in priestly life. Fr. Krymski was ordained in 1983 at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica in Chicago, a church that would later become one of the central settings of his ministry.

His preparation for ministry included more than theological study. He earned a degree in psychology, a master’s degree in art therapy from the Art Institute, and a master’s in divinity from Catholic Theological Union, graduating in the same class as Pope Leo XIV. That combination of psychology, theology and artistic training would become distinctive in his pastoral work, especially in his ministry with people coping with cancer, bereavement, and other forms of suffering.

Before becoming pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, Fr. Krymski served as pastor of Annunciata Parish on Chicago’s Southeast Side. He also spent ten years as a chaplain at Loyola Hospital and the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center. There he accompanied patients, families, and medical staff through some of the most difficult experiences of their lives. In a later interview, he recalled that some of the hardest moments involved families facing the uncertainty of unsuccessful chemotherapy and hospital workers carrying the grief and stress of repeated loss.

That experience helped shape his understanding of healing. For Fr. Krymski, healing was not limited to a physical cure. It also included emotional, spiritual and communal restoration: helping people pray, speak honestly about their pain, find companionship and recognize God’s presence amid circumstances they could not control.

This vision was closely connected to his work with St. Peregrine, the Servite saint traditionally associated with those suffering from cancer. As pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, Fr. Krymski also served as national director of St. Peregrine Ministries and led retreats and parish missions centered on the saint’s healing mission. A newsletter for Friends of St. Peregrine reached approximately 9,000 people, many of whom sought help because of serious illness.

In January 2017, while serving as director of the National Shrine of St. Peregrine and associate pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, Fr. Krymski was invited to lead a three-day parish mission at St. Matthew Catholic Church. The Catholic News Herald noted that his passion for Christ’s healing power through St. Peregrine was evident not only in his preaching, but also in his publications and radio broadcasts about the patron saint of people living with cancer and other serious illnesses. This broader outreach helped make his ministry accessible to people who could not attend a shrine or healing Mass in person.

His influence extended well beyond Chicago. In Milwaukee, Fr. Krymski helped Fr. Robert Turner develop the materials and support needed to revive a St. Peregrine devotion at Blessed Sacrament Parish. The parish’s monthly healing Masses drew between 100 and 200 people, and the devotion eventually led to the parish being recognized as one of the St. Peregrine shrines in the United States. At a 2010 anniversary Mass, Fr. Krymski joined Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki and other Servite priests in praying with those affected by cancer and chronic illness.

In 2015, Fr. Krymski traveled to Auburn, New York, for the dedication of a St. Peregrine statue at St. Francis of Assisi Church. The shrine was established in memory of Donna Camardo Bruno, a parishioner who had battled esophageal cancer and hoped that her parish would have a place dedicated to the saint. The dedication drew a crowd so large that the church was compared to a packed Christmas midnight Mass. Healing Masses were incorporated into the parish schedule, and the shrine was opened to anyone seeking a place for prayer and reflection.

Fr. Chris selling his artwork at our 95th Bazaar, 2026

Fr. Krymski’s ministry also made room for artistic expression. He maintained a studio where he combined prayer and art, creating nature scenes, religious images, abstract acrylic works and mandalas. He described the mandala’s circular form as an image of wholeness and eternity. He also used art in bereavement and cancer-support groups, inviting people to reflect on images and share the stories of their suffering. In his words, healing could begin when people were able to tell others “where it hurts.”

That artistic ministry became a practical form of service during his years at Our Lady of Sorrows. In 2022, Fr. Krymski worked with seniors in an art-ministry coloring and therapy program. Their work, along with his own, was displayed and sold through the parish’s AVE-a Gallery. Proceeds supported the parish’s hot-breakfast program, which fed local people experiencing homelessness two Saturdays each month. The project joined creativity, companionship and direct assistance to people in need.

His pastoral concerns also included domestic violence, the marginalized, the unborn and people struggling to live faithfully in a secular culture. He attributed domestic violence in part to unemployment, substance abuse, poor anger-management skills and a failure to treat others with the respect and kindness demanded by Christ. His response was not merely analytical; it was rooted in the conviction that Christian discipleship requires people to become involved in one another’s lives.

At the center of Fr. Krymski’s spirituality was Mary standing at the foot of the cross. He identified with the Gospel scene in which Jesus gives Mary and John to one another, seeing in it both a command to care for others and a promise that no one must face suffering alone. That Marian and Servite perspective helps explain the continuity in his ministry: accompanying people through pain, creating places of prayer, and building communities where suffering can be shared rather than endured in isolation.

Fr. Krymski and Archbishop Emeritus Aquila at the installation, 2024.

By the time he arrived at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Denver, Fr. Krymski had already spent decades bringing together priesthood, psychology, art, healing ministry and service to the poor. His earlier assignments reveal a pastor who has consistently looked for the places where faith becomes tangible: beside a hospital bed, before a relic of St. Peregrine, around a table of artists, at a breakfast for people without homes, or within a parish gathered to remember one of its own.

His ministry before Denver was therefore more than a sequence of pastoral appointments. It was a sustained answer to the question he encountered repeatedly as a priest and chaplain: how can the Church remain present when life is frightening, painful or uncertain? Fr. Krymski’s answer has been to pray with people, listen to their stories, encourage their creativity, accompany their grief and serve them concretely. In that sense, his arrival in Denver represented not a new beginning, but the continuation of a lifelong ministry of compassionate presence.

Please join us as we congratulate Fr. Chris Krysmki on the second anniversary of his installation as pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Italian Catholic Church, and his continued dedication to serve the least among us.

Before Denver: The Life & Ministry of Fr. Christopher Krymski, O.S.M.

Bequests: A Guide