November 15, 2009 ( Vol. 78, No. 8 , Nov-Dec 2009 )

Calvary, D.C.

Changing demographics also played a part in the establishment of Calvary, D.C. – the third church on the tour – where lunch was served and participants watched a televised 1995 interview with the late Rev. James O. West as they ate.

Established as an Episcopal mission in 1901 by Bishop Henry Yates Satterlee, Calvary's first building was a store-front at 1303 11th Street NE. Calvary Mission, or "Little Calvary," quickly outgrew this site, and in 1909 purchased a lot at the corner of 11th and G Streets NE.

In the 1940s Calvary came into its own. It obtained parish status at the 1941 Diocesan Convention and became a self-supporting congregation. That same year West was called as rector. Under his almost 50 years of leadership, the church flourished. Many outreach programs were started, and church membership more than doubled.

During this era, as demographics shifted and whites moved out to the Maryland suburbs, membership dwindled at the nearby Chapel of the Good Shepherd, a white congregation at 6th and I Streets NE. At the 1949 Diocesan Convention, Bishop Angus Dun proposed that the diocese transfer Good Shepherd's building to Calvary.

"A miracle took place," said longtime Calvary member and tour organizer Rita Scott. "The hand of God had opened the door to that wonderful church." The church quickly raised the $30,000 needed to renovate the building and the second miracle, Scott said, was that Calvary was able to install all of its original stained glass windows in its new location.

The area was hard-hit by the riots following the April 4, 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But Calvary remained undamaged, and responded to the growing need in the area by opening a gym and a hospitality house, among other ministries.

"Whenever I go out in the neighborhood in my dog collar, the older people ask me, ‘When are you going to open the gym again?'" the Rev. Prince Decker, Calvary's current interim rector said.

"This area is again in transition – it's becoming more white," he noted. "Almost every home that is being sold in the neighborhood now is being bought by whites."

As the neighborhood changes, churches like Calvary need to find new ways to share the good news of the Gospel, Hayden said. "It is my intense prayer that God will show us what to do and give us the means to do what he wants us to do."

St. George's, D.C.

From Calvary, the group traveled to the last church that was founded as a black congregation in the diocese – St. George's, D.C.

St. George's held its first organizational meeting in Sally Perry's living room on Oct. 29, 1929 – the day of the Stock Market Crash that triggered the Great Depression.

"So St. George's got started on Black Friday – no pun intended," said the Rev. Vincent Harris, the church's fourth and current rector.

The core group of founders had migrated to the area from Charlotte, N.C., and although there was already an Episcopal Church in the neighborhood, worship was segregated at that time.

"The closest church you could go to from here was St. Luke's on 15th Street," Harris said. "It's a pretty good walk, eh? So Sally Perry and a group of her friends went to the Bishop (James E. Freeman) and said: We want an Episcopal Church in the neighborhood."

Around this time the diocese closed St. George's, Tenleytown and St. John's, Georgetown (colored chapels started by St. Alban's) and sent the worshippers across town to the new church – creating the very same problem Perry's group had been trying to solve.

In 1934, for $15,000, the diocese transferred the building of the neighboring white congregation – Church of the Advent – to St. George's, and in 1952 the church became a separate (self-supporting) congregation.

"It was told to the people who were starting this new congregation that if they took this name (St. George's) there would be certain benefits," Harris chuckled. "Now we still haven't figured out what those are."

"As they say, the DNA of a congregation begins when it starts," he said. The church prospered and the church grew, but it has retained in its current design the feeling of a "house church."

Built to maximize the lot area, the L-shaped present-day church was built in 1968 using a modern, modular design and light-colored brick. It features spectacular stations of the cross cut into the wall by renowned Lithuanian artist Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas. (Jonynas also sculpted the altar, pulpit and baptismal font.)

"The amazing thing about this church is that you can move it," Decker said. "Anyhow you want, you can move it."

"Someone said to me, you either like it or you hate it – there's no in-between," Harris said, pointing out that over the years a number of parishioners have chosen to get married at Calvary: "Not because they don't like [St. George's], but because there's no center aisle."

Calvary also is more spacious, he said, as St. George's has a maximum capacity of 200. St. George's has recently undergone extensive renovations, adding an elevator and connecting the church with a neighboring townhouse to give it more space and make it more accessible.

As with the other parishes on the tour, St. George's is dealing – once again – with the city's changing demographics.

To date, Harris said, "diversity and inclusivity has always been a one-way street," with blacks moving into predominantly white congregations. "But it's a two-way street. Let it be their decision not to come, rather than our decision not to be inviting.

"We're an historically African American church," he continued. "That's who we are. That will never change. But whether we will remain an African American church – that's up to the Lord. These churches have too much history to simply fade away. Our task is to do the best we can.

"You cannot grow if you are not willing to change. And what is the cross for if not death and resurrection? There are some things we have to die to if we want to change. Because we are not going back to the ‘golden age.' We don't know what the future holds, but we believe what all Christians believe: that the best days are always ahead of us."

Start the Soul Tour: St. Mary's, Foggy Bottom and St. Luke's, D.C. >>

Lucy Chumbley is the editor of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.