An almost 200-year-old Anglican church in Nova Scotia is about to be disassembled, packed into freight containers and shipped to Abita Springs where it will be reassembled and serve a Baptist congregation of 80 souls. All Saints Church, built in 1814 in Granville Centre, will be rebuilt in Abita Springs’ historic downtown as First Baptist Church. When it’s completed it will become the oldest standing church sanctuary in the state.
First Baptist’s pastor, the Rev. Gerel Keene, tells Nova Scotia’s Chronicle-Herald newspaper he saw a virtual “for sale” sign on the church on-line, travelled to Granville Centre to inspect the property and decided to buy it. “When this church came up, I knew it right away. I thought, wow, that’s what we need,” Keene told the paper. “I’m a southern Baptist, a Protestant, and I like the architecture, but I also like that it was tied in to Louisiana through the Acadians.”
The church, deconsecrated in 2005, was one of nine surplus buildings the Anglican parish was set to either demolish or sell. Not everyone is happy with the sale; some historians and cultural preservationists have decried the transaction and lament the loss of a unique piece of Nova Scotian history.
For more on the church, read the story at the Chronicle-Herald’s Web site.
Photo by Peter Coffman