Sunday, May 30, 2010

St. James Catholic, Searcy

This church is only two years old. Next door is the St. James built in 1966, and the parish occupied two previous church buildings in Searcy dating back to 1928.

I had some pictures of the unique interior, but my computer seems to have devoured them. Take my word for it, it's beautiful inside.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Johnson Chapel Methodist, Prairie County

Built in 1871, west of DesArc.

Services were held here for 99 years. It still is well maintained, as is the cemetery across the road.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Annunciation Greek Orthodox, Little Rock

The previous post showed Annunciation's first home; this has been the home of Little Rock's Greek Orthodox church for the past 27 years.

Next weekend the church sponsors the popular International Greek Food Festival. The event began as an annual pastry sale at the Quapaw Quarter church in the 1950s and grew considerably after the move. The festival is a great way to sample food and culture from the Middle East as well as Greece, and it is a major fundraiser for an array of worthy causes.

Incidentally, the church website has one of the most complete synopses of the parish's history of any church I've seen. This entry in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas also covers Greek immigration history around the state.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Cathedral Park Apartments, Little Rock

The Little Rock church at 15th & Center was built in 1889. For its first thirty years it was home to the Winfield Methodist congregation. In 1919 it was purchased by the town's growing Greek Orthodox community and became the home to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church until 1983, at which time, like Winfield and many others, the congregation moved westward.

The building was then converted to apartments. The original slate roof was replaced with shingles in 1991.