Guardian Angels Church

Guardian Angels Catholic Church is a historic church located in Chaska, Minnesota founded in 1858. A Roman Catholic church, Guardian Angels is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.Guardian Angels School (School District 112), a pre-K to 8th grade private school, is affiliated with this church.Parish leadershipFather Fernando Ortega became the 28th Pastor of the parish in 2014.Parish historyThe parish’s history dates back to 1842 when the fur trader J.B. Faribault invited Father Augustine Ravoux to establish a mission among the Sioux Indians in what would become the town of Chaska.Fr. Ravoux built a small log chapel and named the parish St. Francis Xavier, but dismantled the chapel three years later when the Native Americans saw the European immigration as a threat, and in turn threatened to burn the chapel down. The chapel was sold to German Catholic Christians in Wabasha and floated down the river to its new home.In the 1850s the Benedictine Fathers made frequent visits to the Chaska area – mostly to German immigrant communities along the Minnesota River, formerly called St. Peter’s River – to determine whether a community was large enough to support a church.Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858 and during that year the Benedictines decided that Chaska was able to support a church. The congregation had difficulty choosing a name for the new church, so they decided to have Michael Guenser's two-year-old daughter look at pictures of saints and select one. She chose the picture of the Guardian Angel, and so the church was named Guardian Angels Catholic Church.