epiScope

A spirit of peace

Human spirit infuses historic church renovation
By: Robert C. Pollack
02/28/2008

GUILFORD - It has two wardens, but no bars or locks or prison guards.

For the "wardens," one of whom is Judy Stengel, are lay leaders - akin to chairmen or women of a board of directors - at St. John's Episcopal Church at 129 Ledge Hill Road.
Along with is neighboring North Guilford Congregational Church, St. John's has been called one of the 12 most historically significant and beautiful churches in Connecticut in several newspaper and magazine articles.

It has earned that reputation as shown by the fact that Meeting House Hill, where the church sits next to the North Guilford Congregational Church, is listed on the National Registry of Historical sites.

Step inside St. John's confines, now undergoing interior renovations as part of a three year, $165,000 capital improvement project, and you are immediately thrust into an aura of warmth and caring and a kind of inner peace.

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New home

Church offered place on Hill
By Donna Littlejohn
02/16/2008

St. Peter's, San Pedro's oldest church building, long targeted by vandals, thieves and squatters, could finally be given new life.

Green Hills Memorial Park has offered to move the small 1884 Gothic structure, long empty, to its cemetery grounds in Rancho Palos Verdes where it would be restored and opened to the public for small services, historic tours and as a prayer chapel.

"I think it's a great offer, and it's a beautiful place for it," said Mary Jo Walker, a member of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society and a parishioner at the present-day St. Peter's Episcopal Church.

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Around the church

Momberg new rector at All Saints Episcopal
Keith L. Martin
Feb. 7, 2008

Not many compare downtown Frederick to Lawrence, Kan., but that is exactly how Tom Momberg sees things in his first two weeks in the city.

‘‘I think they both have an eclectic and funky downtown with an arts scene,” Momberg said. ‘‘I look at Frederick and I think of Lawrence.”

After years of serving communities in Kansas, Missouri and other locales, Momberg, 59 will be spending a lot more time learning about the City of Frederick. He was recently named the 16th rector in the 222-year history of All Saints Episcopal Church on West Church Street.

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Tornadoes inflame scars of '98 storm
By GAIL KERR
Nashville (TN) Tennessean
February 7, 2008

Billy Fields couldn't go to sleep Tuesday night.

"I sat there with the weather radio in one hand and my cell phone in the other," Fields said, cranking up his Jeep in the parking lot of the rebuilt St. Ann's Episcopal Church in east Nashville.

"I am absolutely not afraid of storms, but I didn't get any sleep."

As he watched hour after hour of storm coverage on TV, Fields took inventory of everyone he loves. Where were they? Could he reach them? He thought back 10 years, to the longest, loneliest night of his life. The night the darkness was broken only by a horde of cop cars assigned to leave their rotating blue lights on to protect his storm-ravaged neighborhood.

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Pottersville church arsonist sentenced
By DON LEHMAN
Glens Falls (NY) Post Star
February 6, 2008

The Massachusetts man who pleaded guilty last year to setting fire to a Pottersville church has pleaded guilty to torching a church in his home state as well, and that plea deal has resulted in a delay in his sentencing in Warren County.

Caleb U. Lussier, 21, will likely face a sentence of 13 years and 1 month in federal prison after his guilty plea to two felony charges alleging he attempted to damage or destroy religious property and "willfully used fire to commit an offense" when he set a fire at a Plymouth, Mass., church on Nov. 28, 2005.

He pleaded guilty last month in U.S. District Court in Boston, and is to be sentenced there on April 2.

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Church of the Holy Communion supports Carpenter's Kids program
By: Eric Gross
Mahopac (NY)
02/06/2008

MAHOPAC-A tiny village in Tanzania ravaged by the AIDS virus will be receiving help this year from congregants at the Church of the Holy Communion in Mahopac.

Seventy boys and girls living in extreme poverty in Itiso will be provided with clothing, shoes, school supplies and breakfast each morning thanks to $50 donations made by the worshippers of the Mahopac parish.

The Rev. Canon Claudia Wilson, pastor of the Church of the Holy Communion who also serves as Canon for Congregational Development for the Episcopal Diocese of New York explained that those attending her church were also donating additional funds so that a companion parish-St. Andrew's in Brewster-will have an accompanying relationship.

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Community Works To Restore Chapel
By:Susan J. Greenberg
Suffolk (NY) Life
02/06/2008

ST. PETER’S CHAPEL, located in East Hampton, was formed as a non-denominational congregation in 1881, attended by fishermen, farmers and their families. Now part of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the chapel is being repaired by parishioners.    

More than a century old and falling into disrepair, St. Peter's Chapel, located on Old Stone Highway in East Hampton Town, is being rescued by parishioners and neighbors who recognize its importance to local history.

"My wife and I were married there seven years ago last September," said Charles Riggi, who is the chairman of the Chapel Committee of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Hampton, which owns the chapel. "It is a very special place for us."

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Preservation

Pastor offers to take care of grave remains
ANDREW BROPHY
Connecticut Post
01/21/2008

FAIRFIELD — The Rev. Nicholas Porter, pastor of Trinity Episcopal Church in the town's Southport neighborhood, feels a kinship with several early 18th century Fairfield residents.

Porter doesn't know their names or any of their descendants. No one apparently does.

But they are believed to be former members of Trinity Church and Porter wants their remains — accidentally dug up 17 months ago in a regrading project at Sturges Park — returned to rest.

"We're committed to the bones being re-interred because they're not artifacts. They're human remains," Porter said. "Ideally, we would get permission to re-inter them on the grounds of Trinity Church." The church, which once had a sanctuary off Mill Plain Green, now stands on Pequot Avenue.

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Historic Aiken Foundation honors preservation
By APRIL BAILEY
Aiken (SC) Standard

Aiken's preservationists were recognized on Sunday as the Historic Aiken Foundation held its annual meeting, where they presented Historic Preservation awards to the community.

This year's event, which was held at St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church, included even more honorees as the group expanded the number of awards given. "There are so many deserving people and buildings in town," said Del Hickey, president of HAF, of why more awards were given this year. "We're one of the few organizations in town that gives awards like this. It's a great way to honor people that have put their heart, soul and money into restoration."

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An instrument of praise: Grace Episcopal Church consecrates new pipe organ
By Jessica Jordan
Gainesville (GA) Times
Jan. 21, 2008

After months of installation and fine-tuning, Grace Episcopal Church finally enjoyed the fruits of its labor Sunday during a consecration ceremony for the sanctuary’s new $1 million pipe organ.

The company Casavant Freres of Quebec, Canada, custom-built the organ which has three manual pedals, three keyboards and 47 rows of 3,000 pipes.

Weighing some 26 tons, the Casavant organ is expected to last 80 to 100 years, according to David Brown, the church’s organist and director of music. The extravagant pipe organ replaced an electric organ that Brown said "sort of ran its cycle."

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Sacred spaces

Labyrinth brings sense of calm to those who travel it at church
Version of historical walk symbolizes personal journey
BY ROBERT GIDLEY
Salem (OR) Statesman Journal
January 19, 2008

Once per month, Elaine Jenkins lugs a suitcase containing 140 pounds of canvas labyrinth and carefully lays it out in the gymnasium at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

The public is welcome to walk the labyrinth and discover what has intrigued people for thousands of years.

The first thing Jenkins wants you to know about walking labyrinths is that you don't have to worry about doing it the "right" way.

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Standing alongside saints
An 18th-century church has been refurbished without ruining its sense of history
By MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON
Newport News (VA) Daily Press
January 19, 2008

When the people of Hickory Neck Episcopal Church moved into their new 5,400-square- foot building in mid-2006, they found a lot of things that their old, unusually small colonial brick church never had.

Electric lights and restrooms topped the list of long-awaited upgrades. Room to kneel without backing into your pew was another nice extra.

Yet even while straining to raise the $1.25 million needed to transform their roadside Toano campus, the Rev. Michael Delk and his parishioners knew they had to dedicate some of that money to their age-worn link to the past. Starting almost immediately after the new church's completion, they spent more than a year and $60,000 repairing and restoring the diminutive 18th-century structure — which they soon discovered was in worse shape than expected.

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Changes in Tampa

Change In Store For Venerable Tampa Church
By JANIS D. FROELICH
The Tampa Tribune
January 2, 2008

TAMPA - During the recent approval process for historic preservation status for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena said what she likes best is that the 1904-built church "has changed very little."

The church's surroundings, however, will undergo major changes this year.

With $2.5 million raised, the project will see the bulldozing of a two-story building and construction of a children's chapel in the northeast corner of the church complex, which occupies a city block between Twiggs and Madison streets.

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Fire in Queens

Fire Rips Through Historic Queens Church
New York Daily News
December 27, 2007

A late-night fire ripped through a historic church in Queens.

Firefighters were called to St. Paul's Episcopal Church on 61st Street and 39th Avenue in Woodside just before midnight. It took firefighters about an hour to bring the flames under control.

"As soon as I got out, I just ran and just broke down when I saw that it was actually the church going up in smoke," said Arpana Manuel, the reverend's daughter, who lives across the street from the church.

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Preservation

Church looks to preserve historic Salvation Army site
By GERALD MCKINSTRY
Westchester (NY) JOURNAL NEWS
December 22, 2007)

For the Rev. Joseph Campo, preserving the large English Tudor mansion that sits on top of a Central Avenue hill is simply part of his religious calling.

Campo, pastor of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, said he was surprised that the church's property - tucked among the country's oldest pet cemetery, strip malls and medical office buildings - wasn't already a landmark.

It was, after all, once home to Evangeline Booth, a daughter of the founders of the Salvation Army who herself led the Salvationists movement for 30 years.

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A Work of Faith
St. Philip’s Church gets new facilities
By WAYNE STEWART
The Palestine (TX) Herald
December 21, 2007

PALESTINE — What started as a modest idea to do a little remodeling at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, now has turned into a major construction project on one of Palestine’s oldest churches.

On Thursday a 50-foot tower with a cross on top was put in place at the parish columbarium. That tower, explained St. Philip’s Episcopal Church Rector the Rev. Sam Boyd, is the focal point of all the construction being done at the church.

“That tower is an outward and visible sign of the inward and loving faith this congregation has,” Boyd noted of the members of the church.

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To Keep Doors Open, St. Bart’s Opens Its Arms
By ROBIN FINN
The New York Times
December 21, 2007

THE Rev. William McDonald Tully, with his bald head bare and his clerical shirt and collar camouflaged by that urban essential, a V-neck sweater in black cashmere, is loping down the center aisle of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, the gently decaying Park Avenue landmark where he has served as rector, and as a bit of a secular entrepreneur, since 1994.

The church is hushed at midday, and dimly lighted. A Christmas tree glows to the left of the altar, and poinsettias ring the pulpit. The public trickles in and out, murmuring at the grandeur, or perhaps realizing that this austere sanctuary once provided the setting for the madcap wedding scene from “Arthur,” the Dudley Moore comedy.

In the pews to Mr. Tully’s left, in varying stages of slumping and dozing but not flat-out sleeping (that and disruptive vocalizing are grounds for ejection), are the homeless denizens of the weekday congregation. “Every once in a while you run into somebody who is incredulous that this could happen on Park Avenue,” says Mr. Tully. To his right is a sprinkling of tourists and prayer-sayers. Musicians carrying lutes and zithers prepare to give a free concert in the chapel. Out on the plaza, the church’s Christmas bazaar is drawing last-minute shoppers.

Peaceable coexistence — street people and devout souls — is the prevailing vibe, and Mr. Tully is its architect.

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