A Sanctuary Through Memphis' Tumultuous Past

A Story of Service

From its beginning in 1857, St. Mary’s Episocopal Church in downtown Memphis was founded with a heart for the impoverished and the marginalized of the city. Those who couldn’t afford to “rent a pew”, as was the tradition of the day, were welcomed, and this meant that those who had previously been unable to attend Episocopal services because of their lack of affluence, were welcomed. 

This “mission chapel” in what was considered North Memphis at the time, was founded by a group of Episcopalian women in the city who saw a need and moved on it, forming a church plant fully funded by its mother congregation at Calvary Episcopal, and meeting the needs of the city in a new, faith-filled, and charitable way. The church’s founding was established on service, but its legacy undoubtedly transcended what the women who formed it could imagine. It would stand as a sanctuary of healing during one of the city’s hardest moments, provide a physical and spiritual refuge to the citizens of Memphis, and sustain the heartbeat of a city nearly destroyed by disease.

A Story of Healing

During the summer of 1878, Memphis was ravaged by the Yellow Fever epidemic and the church found itself in the epicenter of distress. Now serving the city as both a church and a school for girls (St. Mary’s School, the oldest school in the city and one of the oldest in the state), the nuns of St. Mary’s saw the needs of a community and had a life-altering decision to make: flee the region, as thousands did, or stay to nurse the sick and minister to the dying. The church became a relief center for the city and by the end of the epidemic, Sister Constance, the nun’s Superior, had died of the fever, as well as three other sisters and two priests of St. Mary’s. These “Martyrs of Memphis” left behind a legacy of service that continues to be remembered today in the Anglican prayer commemorating their sacrifice:

We give thee thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the Heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and the dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death. Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ...   

A Story of Restoration

Nearly one hundred years later, St. Mary’s would again find itself in the center of tragedy in Memphis. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel, city pastors, priests, and rabbis met in the sanctuary of the church to gather and pray. In a moment of spontaneity, Dean Dimmick of St. Mary’s took the processional cross and marched down Poplar Avenue to the mayor’s office, as a gesture of solidarity with the sanitation workers of Memphis who had gone on strike. This move of reconciliation cost the church half of its congregation, who left in protest over the following months. 

But the legacy St. Mary’s was fulfilling was the one it began with…standing as a beacon of hope and service to “the least of these” in Memphis; the ones who couldn’t afford a family pew, the sick and dying, and the marginalized. 

The gothic-style cathedral still houses a vibrant congregation in downtown Memphis today. 167 years later, the conviction of the Episcopalian women of the Midsouth continues in its legacy of faith.