Episcopal Press and News
ALASKA: Three years after a fire, Holy Trinity parishioners set to return
Episcopal News Service. April 30, 2009 [043009-03]
Pat McCaughan
Three years after fire destroyed historic Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Juneau, Alaska, the congregation is eager to return home from their "location in exile."
"Excitement is building. We are shooting for July 1 occupancy of worship space, but we don't expect to move into our offices and classrooms" then, said the Rev. George Silides, rector of the 113-year-old downtown congregation which has been meeting in a nearby Roman Catholic parish hall.
With exterior work completed, "as we take occupancy, we will try to finish the interior ourselves," added Silides. Their comeback -- although steady -- has taken longer than expected. The congregation faces a $1 million shortfall between insurance payouts and replacement costs and planned upgrades for its rebuilt church and parish hall.
The March 12, 2006 blaze occurred "a year before prices spiked," Silides said during a recent telephone interview. "There is tremendous expense to bring in materials to Juneau. There is no road or rail access; all materials must be brought in by barge. A sea-going barge from Seattle expends an extraordinary amount of oil and gas."
Damage caused by the fire, which spread from a nearby home, destroyed both the church and parish hall, and was estimated at about $3.5 million. The new facility's costs "from clearing the rubble to finished and furnished" are expected to total about $5 million. "We'll try to lower the cost to $4.5 million through sweat equity and volunteer crews," Silides declared.
Senior warden Larry Talley, a 16-year member of the congregation, said he's ready to stay in fundraising mode for as long as it takes, if it means trading weekly set-up and break-down of chairs for a regular worship space.
There was an outpouring of generosity after the fire, he said. Unsolicited donations of more than $120,000 poured in, from individuals, congregations, and even the local Victory Foursquare Gospel Church, which does not have a building, but donated its entire $7,000 bank account.
"And we are very grateful to the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin for their hospitality, but people are anxious to get back inside the church even though it's still a hard-hat zone," he added.
Built in 1896 and the city's second oldest church, Holy Trinity's location at Fourth and Gold streets -- a block from the state capitol -- and the popularity of its McPhetres Hall among local 12-step groups, legislators and community organizations were reason enough to upgrade the facilities, Silides said.
More than 80 percent of the parish hall use was for non-church events so "it seemed we ought to be all that we can be and if that took a bit more money than what we had in the bank, we decided we were being called to do that," said senior warden Talley.
"We felt like we had a great story to tell, because our former parish hall had a 50-year track record of use by everybody in the community," said Talley in a telephone interview.
For relative newcomer Brandon Smith, the return "home" holds out interesting possibilities. His family joined Holy Trinity a year ago after attending one of Holy Trinity's weekly Wednesday evening dinners, temporarily held at the Northern Light United Church.
"Everyone else has this institutional memory of what the old space was like and how the new space will be such a different space for us and, hopefully, an improvement. But, at least for myself, the whole culture of our congregation exists in the people," said Smith, 34, an engineer. "We've always been a church together because of the people we are."
Although a joint Catholic-Episcopal "Godly Play" program may not remain once the congregation returns home, Silides said he intends to expand ecumenical relationships and outreach ministries that deepened during the past three years.
"We don't have any facilities but the congregation is the highest it's ever been," he noted. "Those who are seeking a church home have found something they'd never have noticed if it was just about the building."