Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 12, 1993                   TAG: 9310120136
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHRYN ORTH RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
DATELINE: CUMBERLAND (AP)                                LENGTH: Medium

ONCE A YEAR IS ENOUGH AT GRACE CHURCH

The congregation of the 153-year-old Episcopal church assembles for services only once a year.

"We always laugh that it's so easy to have perfect attendance," Martha Taylor of Farmville said before the annual service.

The church, essentially unchanged since it was built in 1840, is actually a shrine - a church with no permanent congregation - of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. It has trustees and officers, but the congregation consists of anyone who shows up for the yearly service.

"We found that there is no canon law that governs what you are supposed to do with a shrine, so we hold a service once a year," said Richard Couture of Goochland, a Grace Church trustee.

The service takes place the first Sunday in October, when the weather gets cooler.

"One year we had a rooster jump up in the window and start to crow. We've had a dog come down the aisle. It's `Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all ye animals,' " Couture said with a laugh.

The church has its original pews, pulpit and stone baptismal font. Under one of the windows is a small door where caskets once were slid into the church from horse-drawn hearses.

Grace Church never has had electricity, plumbing or a heating system.

It still has its original plaster, which is badly in need of repair. Small chunks of ceiling plaster rained down on churchgoers seated in the back pews during the Rev. Sidney Hall's sermon two Sundays ago.

The trustees are faced with ongoing maintenance costs and are trying to raise about $30,000 to restore the church.

"A building like this after 150 years is like an old violin that is not played," Couture said, adding that there is no interest in modernizing the building with electricity or plumbing. "And a heated building is an expense we could not afford."

He would like to repair the plaster, fix a water problem at one side of the church, replace some water-damaged paneling and maybe have the bare wood floor polished.

Some repairs already have been made. Rickety wooden back steps recently were replaced with brick.

"A man nearly fell down the back steps last year. Fortunately he didn't want to sue, because the only thing we had to give him was the church," Couture said.

Grace Church was built to be the centerpiece of the town of Ca Ira, a planned port on the Willis River. The rest of the town never was built, but the church thrived until after the Civil War. It then was used for a while by a Mennonite congregation and revived as an Episcopal church in the 1920s.

Among the 65 or so churchgoers this year was 11-month-old Madeline Sullivan, whose baptism was part of the service. Her family joined the potluck picnic held on the lawn afterward.

"Our home church is involved in the effort to restore the shrine," said Jennifer Sullivan, Madeline's mother. "We love antiques and antiquities, and my husband restores buildings. So when our rector mentioned having Madeline baptized there, it just seemed to fit so well. It was right up our alley, with that church needing a little TLC.

"We thought we would feel much more spiritually connected in that kind of atmosphere. Perhaps because the church has not been modernized, there is a spiritual pureness," she said. "Grace Church seems to be a touchstone for so many people."