DATE: Monday, September 29, 1997            TAG: 9709290062

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   91 lines

A DAY OF FINAL SERVICE: CHAPEL IN THE WOODSA CHAPEL, HOME TO THOUSANDS OF NAVY FOLKS ACROSS 54 YEARS, CLOSES BECAUSE OF DOWNSIZING

Ann Freas opened the love-worn photo album and there she strolled with her beau, Pete, down the front steps of the chapel 27 years ago: she in her flowing white gown, he in the medal-strewn dress uniform of a Navy lieutenant just back from a tour as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

They wore the dashing, radiant expressions of two youngsters who owned the world. But Sunday morning, as they stood at the foot of those same steps of Chapel in the Woods at the Norfolk Naval Air Station, they brimmed with sadness, loss, nostalgia.

Their chapel - the chapel of tens of thousands of people over its 54-year history - had just celebrated its final service.

Though Pete Freas is now retired from the Navy and the couple lives in Portsmouth, they felt they had to be there for Chapel in the Woods' last day of operation.

The Navy blames cost pressures for the closing. In the '90s era of downsizing, even churches aren't immune to shutdowns if a more efficient way to serve their ``customers'' can be found. Navy officials said it makes good business sense to merge Chapel in the Woods' congregation with that of another Protestant chapel located only a few miles away at the Norfolk Naval Station. For now, there are no plans to demolish the air station chapel.

But the explanations and the promises didn't lessen the hurt for the more than 100 people who turned out for the last service. Many felt angry and betrayed; all were saddened by the shuttering of the church that has been the backdrop of weddings, baptisms, funerals and other important life passages for so many Navy families.

``We've been here for 23 years and I swore I wouldn't cry, but. . . ,'' Sherry Lundby said, choking back tears as she stood under at the front entrance of the Renaissance-style chapel.

A few minutes before, she, her husband, George, and their 18-year-old daughter Sara - half of the chapel's choir on its last day - had marched, bittersweet, down the center aisle singing the final hymn, ``Eternal Father, Strong to Save.''

The Lundbys' daughters had been baptized there, and one married there. They'd hoped to see Sara married in the church, too. But that doesn't look possible now.

In his sermon, Cmdr. Dan Ottaviano, who took over as chaplain in July 1996, noted the irony of the closing by tracing the military tumults through which the chapel had persevered: World War II, during which it was built; Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War.

Though the chapel's attendance has gradually declined in recent decades, he said the start of rumors of a closing about a year ago exacerbated the falloff as many in the congregation ``voted with their feet'' and moved on to other churches.

Now for a savings of less than $9,000 a year, he said, the Navy had decided the chapel was expendable. He drew an analogy to the Old Testament story of Joseph, sold by his jealous brothers to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver.

But like Joseph, who ultimately overcame his slavery and imprisonment to become Pharaoh's overseer for all of Egypt, Ottaviano urged his flock to rise above their anger and grief and find a new outlet through which to do good deeds. ``Walk by faith, not by sight, as we make it our goal to please the Lord,'' he said.

That the chapel's congregation has striven to do good is without doubt. June Wright was there as a testament. She and her 11-year-old daughter, Sade, live in a new two-story home in Park Place that the congregation, working with Habitat for Humanity, helped build in 1995.

``It felt good,'' June Wright said of her first-time experience as a homeowner.

The church program spoke of good works, too: donations of $300 each from chapel collections to the Salvation Army, Bethany Christian Services, the Deaf Action Center, and Hope Haven Shelter.

And in the church's front lawn stood another testimonial: a memorial garden dedicated to honor service members killed or missing in action. It was erected several years ago by people in the chapel circle.

Mildred Anibal, a chapel-goer for 31 years, helped build and tends the garden. For years she has planted a potpourri of perennials around the chapel. She didn't have the heart to do so this spring when rumors of the closing intensified.

But there in one of the front beds, a half-dozen pink begonias shimmered in the morning drizzle. ``It's the first year they've ever come back,'' Anibal said.

She hasn't bothered wondering whether there's a message there somewhere. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS color photos/The Virginian-Pilot

A Marine Corps color guard rifleman, Cpl. Richard Letellier, stands

by after the closing service of the Chapel in the Woods at Norfolk

Naval Station. Closing the chapel will save less than $9,000 a year,

Cmdr. Dan Ottaviano said.

While Mildred Anibal, left foreground, talks to June Wright,

parishioners Gale Wagner and Ramona Cahall console each other.

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