About this property
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama, is a parish church of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. St. Andrew's was founded in 1902 as a church school for children who could not get to the downtown Church of the Advent on Sunday. In the following year, the mission was expanded to include Sunday services. A site was acquired and a small church built; the first service was held on Easter, 1905. In December of that year, the parish was incorporated; it was admitted to full parochial rights at the Diocesan Convention of 1906. The original church building, a few blocks from the present church, was destroyed by a tornado in March, 1913. The parish had been considering a new building further up Red Mountain; now they had to act. The present site, at the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Twelfth Street South, was acquired and the cornerstone laid by Bishop Charles Beckwith on St. Andrew's Day, November 30, 1913. The current building was first used at Easter, 1915. Soon after St. Andrew's was established, the rector Raimundo de Ovies, teamed up with The Rev. Carl Henckell, pastor of All Saints Church, to found Holy Innocents Hospital for Children (later Children's Hospital of Alabama). The hospital was founded in 1911 and originally operated under the auspices of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. From that time until after World War II, St. Andrew's remained an ordinary medium-sized parish serving the immediate neighborhood. It was not particularly noticeable for its outreach or services. The parish, made up mainly of small business people and some professionals, was hit hard by the Great Depression. The expansion of the city over the mountain, begun in the 1930s and heightened after 1945, drained some of the traditional base of membership. However, another change had begun which was to give St. Andrew's a special character and a unique place in the Diocese of Alabama. Beginning in a small way in the early 1940s, St. Andrew's gradually became an Anglo-Catholic parish with an emphasis on the celebration of the Eucharist and on traditional ceremonies and liturgy. Father Robert Yancey Marlow (priest from 1951 to 1959) strengthened the “high” church profile of the church, as did Fr. Robert Woodfield and Fr. Bruce Wirtz. As this Anglo-Catholic parish, St. Andrew's often led the way in Alabama in liturgical innovation and experimentation. The “bells and smells” of ancient practice have been happily combined with the contemporary language of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and increasing lay participation in all aspects of parish life. These liturgical elements have attracted new parishioners to St. Andrew's, but an equal attraction has been its outreach ministry.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church listed on the National Register?
Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 27, 1986.
What type of historic resource is Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church?
Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church?
The period of significance for Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church is recorded as the industrial era.
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