Knowing, Sharing, and Making History: The St. Matthew’s Bicentennial Celebrations 2024-2026
Bicentennial Thoughts, News, and Events
For the next three years St. Matthew’s is going to engage, share, celebrate and learn from it’s history with a variety of events, lectures, fellowship, and artistic offerings.
St. Matthew’s has an amazingly rich heritage going back to colonial times as a parish of the Church of England, reformed as an Episcopal Church in 1824, and continuing to worship and serve to this day. As we walk through our history, we encounter stories of great heroism and grace as well as stories that show a failure to live the Gospel of Jesus, God’s call to Beloved Community with all human beings, and honoring the dignity of all people as children of God.
We will grow in self-understanding through our bicentennial, and we will celebrate how God has remained steadfast and faithful to St. Matthew’s, at times in spite of ourselves. using our past failures to inspire and direct our mission today.
Our celebrations will be structured on three separate bicentennials:
The formation of the parish by lay people in August 1824
The Parish’s Recognition by the Episcopal Diocese in spring 1825
The Consecration of our church building in spring 1826
Thus in 2024, we will look at our history from 1750-1850, with special emphasis on the lives of lay people and enslaved persons in the formation of St. Matthew’s.
In 2025, we will look at history from 1850-1950, with special emphasis on the collaborative and relationship of this parish to the Diocese, highlighting especially the way Brooks+ and Bishop Curry moved forward together on the issue of racial reckoning that is now central to the diocesan mission.
In 2026, we will look at history of parish 1950-present, while also exploring the church, churchyard, and other buildings. A goal for this time is to consecrate a memorial to the enslaved persons on our campus and contextualize items memorializing the confederacy, such as the plaque in the Narthex about our bell.
For the rectors letter on the meaning of the bicentennial, click here.
