Modern Church
Merchant's Hope Episcopal Church still has an active congregation and is among the oldest Protestant churches in America. Nearly all of its parishioners can trace their ancestry back to the First Families of Virginia. Merchant's Hope Church is a registered Virginia and National Historic Landmark. One of the church's treasures is the "Great Bible". Rebound and not totally complete, it was printed in London in 1639-40. The "Great Bible" is believed to be the Bible with the longest association with one parish. The silver communion set on display was made in Charleston, South Carolina, and dedicated on the 200th anniversary of the parish in 1857.
Following damage during the American Civil War, recreation of the furnishings was patterned after five extant Tidewater area churches, with expert documentation. The initial restoration of the church was completed in the mid 1970s. The church has also undergone more recent renovations that have included masonry repairs to stabilize the structure, the installation of a modern heating and air conditioning system, a security system, and the removal of a slate roof added during the initial restoration that had caused cracking and significant sagging of the roof trusses that were also repaired.
A modern parish house was constructed in the 1990s.
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Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or church:
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—Nancy Banks-Smith, British columnist. Guardian (London, February 20, 1979)
“Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of sacralizing person and community.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)