For residents of Cathedraltown, the news was nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

After nearly a decade of seeing the towering Slovak Cathedral of Transfiguration in Markham closed to the public, local resident Mayrose Gregorios couldn’t believe it when she heard the news from two men doing cleanup work on the property one morning: the church would be open for weekend mass.

For as long as Gregorios had lived in Cathedraltown, a quiet subdivision near Major Mackenzie Dr., and Highway 404, whose name was inspired by the adjacent European-style cathedral, the empty building had cast a dark shadow on the community. The last service in the cathedral, which broke ground more than three decades ago, took place in 2006.

The reasons for the closure are believed to be twofold: The first, a decade-old dispute between the developer Helen Roman-Barber and the Eparchy for Catholic Slovaks of the Byzantine Rite in Canada, over the title to the land, left the cathedral without a congregation.

But in recent years, Roman-Barber, head of King David Inc., told residents the cathedral, with its magnificent 14-storey bell towers and cupolas plated in 22-karat gold, was closed so that the numerous detailed mosaics planned for the inside could be completed. An anticipated deadline of December 2015, set by Roman-Barber in a Markham staff report, came and passed. Residents stopped hoping for good news.

So two weeks ago, Gregorios woke up early and waited for the 18-tonne bronze church bells, built at the prestigious Paccard Foundry in France, to ring and announce the momentous occasion. When she didn’t hear them toll that day, she walked over to the cathedral, saw people streaming in and joined them.

“They said it was a private mass, but couldn’t stop anyone who wanted to worship,” she said, adding there were about 200 people in attendance. “It was a beautiful moment: the mass, the singing, the spirit of it all,” said Gregorios, who said the mass was in Arabic and English.

According to Ed Shiller, a spokesman for the Roman-Barber family, the Jesus the King Greek Melkite Catholic Church, based in Richmond Hill, has been holding Sunday mass at the cathedral since late November. The community first approached Roman-Barber months ago, in an attempt to find a space to accommodate their growing congregation.

But that request became more urgent after a fire in the Melkite church last month made it unusable.

Shiller said Roman-Barber was able to get a “restricted” temporary occupancy permit from the city of Markham, “to allow this specific congregation to have their mass at the cathedral on Sundays,” even though the mural work is still underway.

Once it’s finished, the cathedral will be able to apply for a permanent occupancy permit, said Shiller, allowing it to be officially open to the public.

Father Ibrahim El Haddad, the priest with the Melkite church, declined to comment and referred questions to Roman-Barber.

The cathedral has been a long labour of love for the Roman-Barber family, and was started by Helen Roman-Barber’s father, mining magnate, Stephen B. Roman, in 1984. It was built in honour of Slovaks who faced religious oppression during the Soviet era. Its cornerstone was consecrated by Pope John Paul II on his tour of North America that year.

Roman suddenly died four years after he started the project, leaving his daughter and her Slovak Greek Catholic Church Foundation, a charity that owns the cathedral, to finish the work, which has cost upwards of $30-million. One of the mosaics of Jesus, which adorns the central dome, cost $1.2 million.

Shiller says the delay in opening the cathedral is due to the time it has taken to choose and install mosaics that have been planned for the ceiling. “Cathedrals can take decades to complete.” He says the tiles for the mosaics have been selected and are being shipped from Italy and will be installed over the next few months.

“When that is done, there will be a lot of other cosmetic things: putting in the floor near the entrance, painting the walls, putting the finishing on the pillars,” which will be done while it’s occupied by the Melkite congregation, he said.

Shiller said the 2006 dispute between Roman-Barber and Eparchy of Catholic Slovaks is now a distant memory, one he believes both parties have moved on from. He said the foundation still owns the title to the cathedral land and the land around it.

Bishop John Pazak, who represented all Slovak Catholics at the time, was recently appointed as a bishop of the Phoenix Byzantine Eparchy in Arizona. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Shiller says that Roman-Barber is open to any Catholic rite using the cathedral in the future.

The plan is for the Melkite congregation to move in permanently in late winter, and the cathedral can be open for public events such as concerts after that.

“When this work is finished, the cathedral will finally become a functioning part of the Cathedraltown community and the broader community,” he said.

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Correction – December 19, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the location of the cathedral.

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