[what the photo doesn't show is that the church also has a huge rectory to the right and a green across the street]
Watertown's Christ Church to shut doors next month
BY RICK HARRISON REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
WATERTOWN -- Eighty-nine years ago, Shirley Palmer was baptized at Christ Church. She was married there and saw her son baptized and confirmed there. Nineteen years ago she attended her husband's funeral at the 245-year-old building on the town Green.
And last year Palmer was there when nearly all of the congregation left to form their own church because of the national Episcopal Church's stance on gays and other issues.
On Sunday, Bishop Laura J. Ahrens of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut told the congregation the final services in the building will be July 26.
It is closing.
"It sort of broke your heart," Palmer said. "But you have to go on."
John W. Spaeth III, director of administration for the diocese, said the building will close because of "fiscal prudence" and the diocese will be working with the congregation to determine how it could proceed.
The Rev. Stanley C. Kemmerer, priest-in-charge of Christ Church, said about 20 members who were at the meeting -- of about 50 he said would consider themselves related to the church -- immediately discussed their options.
They could stop going to church. They could join another church. Or they could find a church to sponsor them so they could continue to meet at a new location as a member of the Episcopal Church.
"It's not news any of us wanted to hear," Kemmerer said of the meeting. "But it was kind of ... now we go on. Now we know what we're dealing with. Now we can make plans. Let's get to it."
Kemmerer said the church faced financial troubles even before most members split in January 2008 to create New Hope Anglican Church. which now meets at Swift Middle School. He said the congregation had dipped into the church's endowment for years and by the time of the schism, most of the money had been depleted.
Kevin Kallsen, senior warden of New Hope, said he was not surprised the diocese chose to close the building because it costs $65,000 each year to maintain it, not including salaries and insurance.
"I don't know if I'm sad as much as reminded that this is a reminder of the old church," he said. "An old building on an old block. Emptied."
Diocese officials have approached The Taft School about potentially buying the property, according to the nearby private school's business manager, Gil Thornfeldt.
"The timing is horrible," Thornfeldt said. "We're in the middle of a major building project and endowments are down."
Town Manager Charles Frigon said church members have spoken to town officials about possibly buying the green, but no official contact has been made between the town and the diocese.
To read the complete story see Tuesday's Republican-American or our electronic edition.
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In the 1973, the priest who was first the vicar and then rector of the church where I grew up left to become rector at Christ Church. Soon after he arrived, he 'got Jesus' (it's the only way I can describe it) and went from being a broad churchman (he went to the General Theological Seminary in NYC) to an evangelical fundamentalist. Within six years, the congregation had split.
In 1979-81, I taught at the Taft School, just down the road. Taft and Christ Church used to have a very close relationship; students would attend services at Christ Church and many of the school's ceremonies were held there (Taft having an Episcopalian background). But by the time I arrived, the connection had been severed. The school had its own chaplain, an Episcopal priest, who would do services on campus. I tried going back to Christ Church, where the same rector was still in place, but I couldn't take it. It made me quite sad because he and his wife had been incredibly important in my formation. When I told him I was discerning ordination, he made it quite clear he was against women's ordination.
Eventually he and his wife moved to the south, landing in Florida. But the split had taken at Christ Church and those faithful Episcopalians had either quit going to church entirely or moved up the road to Litchfield. Whatever was preached at Christ Church, I don't know, other than it became part of the Connecticut Six who wanted out of The Episcopal Church.
Meanwhile, when I was ordained to the priesthood, I wrote a note to the priest who had been so important and never heard back.
Imagine my surprise to find out two years ago that he had died from ALS on my priesting anniversary. I would never wish ALS on anyone and I am sorry that is how he died. I do feel that our lives are irrevocably connected by sharing the same day, that is, I will never forget his date of death.
I am not so kind in thinking about what craziness he created in an old church that now is closing.
Somehow God will write straight on these crooked lines of lives that intersect, of congregations who have split and now lost their home, of all the craziness out there.
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