DATE: Thursday, May 15, 1997                TAG: 9705150734

SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN             PAGE: 18   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   29 lines

EPISCOPAL CHURCH ESTABLISHED AT HOLY NECK IN 1747

No one knows the exact date when religious services were first held at the spot known as ``Holy Neck.''

Tradition has maintained that Indians held services here and that Indian relics and possibly burying places are in the immediate area.

The Friends or Quakers held meetings here as early as 1672. Records indicate that in 1747, the Episcopal Church established a parish at Holy Neck and continued to worship here until the Revolutionary War, when the ministers and leaders, being Tories, fled to England.

The Rev. James O'Kelly held services at this spot as early as 1790 and from that time, Holy Neck has been in the Christian denomination.

The Eastern Virginia Conference of the Christian Church was first established here in 1829.

In 1931, Holy Neck became a Congregational Christian Church when the Christian Churches of the South joined with the Congregational Churches of the North.

In 1957, the Congregational Christian Churches merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Churches to form the United Church of Christ.

The congregation is a member of the Southern Conference and the Eastern Virginia Association of the United Church of Christ.

Holy Neck United Church of Christ is at the corner of Holy Neck and Pineview Roads. Interim Pastor is the Rev. Dr. Robert Marr.

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