Developer flips closed church property to Pentecostal sect

Developer flips closed church property to Pentecostal sect

“Photographer snaps $1.8M in Eastie church deal: Pushed condos, studio, then sells Catholic land to evangelicals”

The turnaround sale of a closed Catholic church to a Pentecostal congregation has stunned East Boston neighbors who were told the property would be made into a photography studio by the same businessman who turned a quick $1.8 million profit on the resale.

“It was just very shocking. The (neighbors) really welcomed him and now they turned around and did this,” said Dodi Obermeier, a parishioner at the former St. Mary Star of the Sea, who was floored to learn this week that a South Boston commercial photographer had dropped his elaborate plans and quietly cut the lucrative deal.

At the center of the real estate transaction is Michael Indresano, 41, who entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the Archdiocese of Boston to buy the parish property, including a church, hall, garage and rectory, in February 2006, according to Terrence C. Donilon, a church spokesman.

Forget the “evangelicals” in the headline because the press rarely can make heads or tails of the various kinds of Christianity. The church was sold to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a Brazilian Pentecostalist group that’s going gangbusters in Brazil, the world’s most populous Catholic nation.

Blaming the Archdiocese?

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