St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Shelton (1818)

Connecticut’s first Anglican parish was established in Stratford in 1707. Daniel Shelton, an Anglican who had settled in Stratford and later in Repton (later called Ripton and now Huntington, which was later incorporated into the city of Shelton) and been one those who had earlier petitioned for the Stratford parish, petitioned in 1722 for another parish to be established in Repton. Clergy from Stratford began making the trip to Repton to conduct Anglican services in private homes until the Repton parish was founded in 1740. A church building was soon constructed and survived until 1811. In that year, Sidney DeForest, seeking to rid the church’s belfry of pigeons by shooting them, ended up setting the church on fire with tow wadding from his musket. DeForest settled the claims for damages by giving some of his property as payment. The current St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was then built on the site of the earlier church. It was begun in 1812 and completed in 1818 and continued to stand next to what is now called Huntington Center Green. In 1870, a number of changes were made, in the Gothic style, to the interior of the church.

St. Sergius Chapel (1933)

Russian Village is a historic district, located between Route 6 and the Pomperaug River in Southbury. It was established in 1925 by a group of Russians who had fled to America after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Count Ilya Tolstoy, the son of Leo Tolstoy, discovered the area during a visit to his translator in Southbury. Siberian novelist George Grebenstchikoff then led the establishment of a community there, intended as a seasonal cultural center for Russian writers, artists, musicians and scientists. The village was named Churaevka, after a Siberian village mentioned in Grebenstchikoff‘s works. The community, established by, but not limited to, the creative intelligentsia, remained a predominantly Russian community into the 1980s. The main building in the Village is a chapel dedicated to St. Sergius. A stone building, it was designed by philosopher and painter Nicholas Roerich, financed by helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky, and built in 1932 – 33 with labor volunteered by village residents, including Ivan Wassileff, a stone mason. The Chapel was also intended to be a memorial to the Cathedral of Our Savior in Moscow, which was destroyed by the Soviets in 1931 and has more recently been rebuilt. Since the Chapel itself is too small to contain a congregation, there is a small amphitheater with curved stone benches just outside, facing the Chapel. In 1931, the Chapel was deeded to the Roerich Museum in New York and later to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

South Congregational Church, Middletown (1867)

During the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, Ebenezer Frothingham was a separatist minister. In 1753, he brought his congregation from Wethersfield, where he had been in and out of jail, to Middletown in pursuit of religious tolerance. After worshiping in his home on Mill Street, a meeting house was erected nearby. Known as the Strict Congregational Church and later as South Church, the congregation moved to a new building at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets in 1830. A Discourse Preached in the South Congregational Church, Middletown, Ct., on the Sabbath Morning after the Assassination of President Lincoln was published in 1865. The current church was constructed on the same site, replacing the earlier structure, in 1867. The church was renovated in 1985 and 2008.

Grace Episcopal Church, Old Saybrook (1872)

For Easter, we’re featuring here an English Gothic-style church in Old Saybrook. Regular Episcopal services began to be held in Old Saybrook in 1825, meeting in the Center Schoolhouse. The first Grace Episcopal Church was constructed in 1830-1831, later replaced by the current church building, built in 1871-1872. The second church used the cornerstone of the first church, which was subsequently moved around the corner to the Old Boston Post Road.

Old Town Hall, Hebron (1838)

Hebron‘s Old Town Hall was built in 1838 on Hebron Green as a Methodist meeting house. The earliest Methodist Church in Hebron was erected c. 1805 on Burrows Hill and lasted until 1828, when a new schoolhouse was built that was also used by the church (which had contributed $100 towards its construction) and for town meetings. This was used until the 1838 church building was erected. The old Burrows Hill church building was taken down in 1845. The Methodist Society in Hebron broke up around 1850 and in 1863 the building was sold to the town for use as a town hall, at which time the structure was lowered to one story. It was used for town meetings until 1950 and afterwards was used by various civic organizations for meetings. Since 1971, the Old Town Hall has been owned and maintained as a museum by the Hebron Historical Society, which recently restored the building.

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First Congregational Church of Plainfield (1819)

The First Church of Christ of Plainfield was established in 1705. The Town of Quinebaug, now Plainfield, had already been incorporated in 1699, although it did not yet have an established church or meeting house. The first meeting house was begun in 1702 on Black Hill and took seven years to be finished. In 1720, the church was moved to a more central position on the turnpike and that structure lasted sixty years. In 1784, a new church, half a mile to the south, was completed, but was blown down in the September gale of 1815. A new and sturdier church, constructed of stone, was completed on the same spot in 1819 and continues today as the First Congregational Church of Plainfield.

Immanuel Lutheran Church, Bristol (1907)

German immigrants founded the German Lutheran Church in Bristol in 1892 (or 1894). A church was built on School Street, on the south bank of the Pequabuck River, in 1896. A split in the church soon emerged: one group, which would affiliate with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, constructed Immanuel Lutheran Church in 1907 at 154 Meadow Street. The other group built Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church on Judd Street (the original church building has since been replaced) in 1906. School buildings were constructed adjacent to Immanuel Lutheran Church in 1925 and 1963.