Tag Archives: Episcopal Church

-Georgia, Black History, Churches and Temples, National Register of Historic Places

St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church of Brunswick, Georgia

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St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church of Brunswick, Georgia, began in 1883 when two women from St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Brunswick, Mary King Troupe and Louise Nightingale, started a Sunday School for the Black community. By 1885, the mission had grown, and St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church was officially organized, named after Athanasius of Alexandria, a prominent African saint.

The current church building replaced the original wooden church, which was destroyed by a storm in 1896. The Gothic-Revival influenced church is made of tabby and is one of the few remaining tabby structures from the 19th century still standing in Brunswick. In 1946, the tabby was covered in stucco.

A major renovation in 2000 included the installation of stained glass memorial panels, featuring three panels that honor Civil Rights Movement leaders.

-Georgia, Churches and Temples

Christ Episcopal Church of Augusta, Georgia

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The Harrisburg neighborhood of Augusta, Georgia is located near the Augusta Canal on Greene Street. It was a once thriving mill village that is now a neighborhood in transition after the last mill closed in the early 2000s. Christ Church was founded in 1882. it was established to serve the mill workers, who were were poorly paid and unable to afford to travel to other Episcopal churches in Augusta.

Edward W. Platt, a local property owner, donated land for the church. The church building was relocated to the area when the Church of the Good Shepherd outgrew its building. In 1883, the Carpenter Gothic church was rolled down the hill from Summerville to Harrisburg, where it still stands today.

The church grew over the years and became a key resource to the Harrisburg families. Under the leadership of Deaconness Ruth Byllesby, the church became a Neighborhood House to support mill families. Deaconness Byllesby ministered for the church from 1927 to 1943. Her good work in serving the families and children of the area helped keep people fed and clothed, even during the Depression. Because of her good work, the Diocese of Georgia declared her a diocesan saint.

Christ Church attained parish status in 1951. While the Episcopal congregation has disbanded, the mission of supporting Harrisburg residents continues today. You can read more about the church and its continued services here.

-Georgia, Black History, Churches and Temples, National Register of Historic Places

St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church-A Historic Black Congregation in Darien, Georgia

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St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church was consecrated in 1876 after it was built on land donated by Frances Kimble Butler Leigh. Rev. James Wentworth Leigh, an Anglican minister who had moved to McIntosh County in 1873 as Frances’s husband, obtained the church’s designs. It was built to resemble an English church. The newly freedmen built the church to serve as the Black Episcopalian church. The church was named after a martyred Black saint.

Unfortunately, the church was destroyed in an 1896 hurricane. It was rebuilt and severely damaged again in the 1898 hurricane. Completed in 1901, the church is one of the most complete tabby buildings on the coast.

-North Carolina, Black History, Churches and Temples

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church-Tryon, North Carolina

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The congregation of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church began in 1886 in a log church near Tryon as a place for Black residents to worship. It didn’t officially become the Good Shepherd Mission until 1908.

Before the mission’s founding, the church existed in a Sunday school begun by Mabel True Plaisted, the second wife of Maine’s governor and member of the local white Episcopal Church, Holy Cross, to educate local Black schoolchildren. The school became a local gathering place for the Black community, much to the chagrin of the white community members. The town forced Plaisted to close the school because they did not want the school so close to Holy Cross.

In the following year, the Tyron Industrial Colored School was opened on Markham Road, an area that was approximately a mile from town along winding roads. The church used the school for services. By 1908, the building became an official missionary chapel of the Episcopal Missionary District of Asheville.

The building was used until the 1950s, when it was decided that the old building needed to be replaced. The church found an abandoned church, St. Andrews Chapel, on a nearby plantation was built in the early 1900s for the servants and tenant farmers of the plantation to use. The church was dismantled and moved to its current location. The building is still in use today.

While the church was started for the Black community members of Tryon, it became integrated in the sixties and is now fully integrated.

Nina Simone grew up in Tryon. Her parents and a few of her siblings are buried in the Good Shepherd Cemetery.

-Alabama, Churches and Temples, National Register of Historic Places

Grace Episcopal Church-Clayton, Alabama

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This Gothic Revival Church was completed in 1876 on land donated by Henry DeLamar Clayton, the town’s namesake and former president of the University of Alabama. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

-Georgia, Churches and Temples

The Prince of Peace Episcopal Church-Vienna, Georgia

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Constructed in 1903, the Prince of Peace Episcopal Church was originally located on Cotton Street, but it is now located on School Drive on the Vienna School campus. By the 40s, it was no longer used as a church and became the home of Aunt Genie’s Kindergarten. The building has recently been restored and is now home of the Vienna Cultural Center.