Church Building

Parishioners and friends of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church carried lighted candles in an outdoor procession and saw the bones of martyrs placed in the church altar as the Cub Hill church's long-awaited consecration took place among ritual and pageantry yesterday.Longtime members who had nourished St. Demetrios since its founding 25 years ago said they were proud and honored to attend the nearly three-hour ceremony formally dedicating the church building, which has been open since 1984.

Whether to make a brown brick church on the main "Avenue" of Hampden a city historic landmark is scheduled to be the first item on the planning commission agenda today. Grace Methodist Episcopal Church in the 1000 block of W. 36th St., a handsome structure with a distinctive tower, meets the criteria of the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP), city officials said. The building is being renovated after a fire last year. If the newly sworn-in planning commission approves the designation, the item would go to the City Council for a vote and, if approved, to the mayor for his signature.

It's heartening to see the freshly cleaned walls of the granite tower of the old Berea Temple at Madison Avenue and Robert Street.Thanks to the hard work of its congregation, this Seventh-day Adventist landmark just off Eutaw Place is beginning an expensive and lengthy restoration. All of the city's houses of worship should be so lucky.Not many blocks away, at Baker and Gilmor streets, there's a vacant lot where the stone walls and bell tower of the old St. Gregory's Roman Catholic Church stood until last summer.

A parcel of land located in the middle of the Hampton Garden community is up for sale. The property is 12.71 acres and owned by the Belvedere Christian Church. The church is selling the land due to their loss of membership and their inability to function as an independent religious operation. Over the last 10 years, the church has seen their membership fall from 200 to 20. The lost of membership has been attributed to the "passing" of members and members moving to other geographic areas and joining other religious institutions.

A LOT can happen in 50 years. Half a century ago there were no computers, e-mail, microwave ovens or Ford Mustangs. But the community did have the Townsend Avenue Baptist Church, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.The church, on the north side of the Baltimore-Anne Arundel border, was formed in the summer of 1948, and met at the Brooklyn home of Mr. & Mrs. Alford Miller. Land at the corner of Townsend Avenue and Fifth Street was donated to the church in 1949, and worship services were held there in a large tent.

The steeple rises 50 feet above a brick building that is majestic in its classic simplicity and newness. An intricate carving of St. John the Evangelist is a backlighted beacon to motorists passing on the highway below. A century-old statue of Christ dominates a vestibule that opens to a gleaming, sun-drenched sanctuary, where a pair of sculpted angels, cleaned of years of grime, guard the altar. Westminster's newest landmark is St. John Church's new home. The $6.5 million project was 10 years in the making - and it is the largest Roman Catholic church to be built in the Baltimore Archdiocese in more than four decades.

The burned smell of the House of Prayer 1 lay heavy in the heat Sunday, as an Owensville church met on the grass a few yards from their fire-gutted building.No one would have guessed the small congregation in southern Anne Arundel County was meeting for the first time since losing its brick and stucco church last week. Or that members have no insurance and no money to rebuild, that even the chairs on which they sat were borrowed from an Annapolis funeral parlor.This was a sweet service for about 60 faithful members, an occasion of joy.The countryside rocked with their joy, a happy beat that the drummer picked up from the keyboard player and the people repeated to the jingle of the tambourine.

Santa Claus was suited up -- presents and all -- waiting to make his Christmas Eve entrance at the Glen Burnie Korean Presbyterian Church. But within minutes, reality -- in the form of Anne Arundel fire and police officials -- intruded: The church building, which had been declared unsafe earlier in the day, was ordered closed. Santa took off his costume. The 65 to 70 worshipers went home. And the church found itself with nowhere to hold its Christmas Day service. "The 2003 Christmas spirit was stolen, taken away from us last night.

When the issue of separation between church and state is raised, it is usually in the context of controlling the extent to which the church is permitted to influence the state and the laws by which we live.In Pompano Beach, Florida, an attorney is poised to seize the building, Sunday-morning offerings and other assets of a church in a case that should alarm constitutional scholars and others concerned about the excessive reach of government and its hostility to religious people who believe their faith compels them to apply that faith in the public arena.

Silence blankets the Curtis Bay United Methodist Church, broken onlyby the faint sounds of an elderly woman scrubbing the basement floor.The exquisite cherry-wood sanctuary stands nearly empty, echoingwith the ghosts of hundreds of members who died or moved away. On this quiet corner overlooking the industrial smokestacks, where 25 people gather on a typical Sunday, it's hard to imagine the thriving church that once existed.But to the new minister, the Rev. Betty Lee Roche, the church isn't just old -- even though it celebrates its 100th anniversary today,and the membership averages age 70.To her, the place is full of promise.