Grace Episcopal Church

Here follows an excerpt from the church's website:

Our History
A Brief History of Grace Church
Grace Church was the third Episcopal parish to be founded in the city of Alexandria. “Episcopal” comes from the Greek word meaning “Bishop”. The Episcopal Church (ECUSA) is the name of our church in the United States. We are part of the world-wide Anglican Communion of those churches with roots in the Church of England. From our earliest days, Grace has been an active parish in the Diocese of Virginia. Our history affirms the vision of our founders to be a church where “all may come without regard for temporal estate, freely and without fee, as brethren come one to another.”

1855 Founding by 30 members of Christ Church, Alexandria, and first services at the Lyceum
1860 First church on South Patrick Street completed and consecrated
1861 Church converted into a hospital for Union troops during the Civil War
1893 Weekly celebration of the Eucharist, and Choral Eucharist each Sunday, begins
1930 First Midnight Mass celebrated
1948 New church building on Russell Road dedicated by Bishop Goodwin / Father Edward Merrow serves as Rector
1959 Grace Episcopal School opens
1975 Father Robert Moody begins to serve as Rector
1986 First woman ordained to the Priesthood at Grace Church
1989 Father Robert Malm begins to serve as Rector
1994 Renovation and expansion of our physical plant
2005 Sesquicentennial celebration year
2019 Father Robert Malm retires
2019 – 2020 The Rev. Michael B. Guy, Sr., S.T.S. appointed Interim Rector by the Diocese of Virginia
2020 First recorded video services offered
2020 Grace Church Food Pantry rapidly and vastly expands to serve over 300 families per week
2021 First live streamed services offered via the Grace Church YouTube Channel.
2021 The Rev. Dr. Anne Turner is called to serve as Grace’s new Rector, the first woman in Grace’s history. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, she is formally installed as Rector in 2022, although she began her service in 2021.


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Here follows an excerpt from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Grace Episcopal Church is an Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Grace Episcopal Church is a center for worship and fellowship, a school for discipleship and stewardship and a community for healing and outreach.

History
The church was founded in 1855 by members of Christ Church and St. Paul's Episcopal Church who wanted to start another Episcopal Church in the expanding West end of Alexandria. The parish's original founding statement says "where all may come without regard for temporal estate, freely and without fee, as brethren come one to another." This was in contrast to the common practice at the time for parishioners to pay a pew tax. During the American Civil War, the church's building was used as a hospital. It was associated with the Oxford Movement.

After World War II, the parish expanded and moved to Alexandria's outskirts, constructing the current church building in gothic style in 1948. A grade school was added in 1959 in the parish education wing.

Current practice
Today, the parish continues to proclaim itself to be a place "where all may worship freely by God's grace." The parish is inclusive, and welcomes all persons. The parish also includes La Gracia, a liturgy for Spanish-speaking members. La Gracia meets on Sunday mornings at 9:00 am in the parish hall.

Grace Episcopal School accepts children ages 3 years old to 5th grade of all faiths and ethnicities.

Worship
Grace Church considers itself to be High Church by tradition. The Eucharist is the center of worship at Grace Church, and is celebrated several times per week. The weekly Eucharist schedule includes services on Sunday at 7:30 am, 9 am, 11:15 am, and 5:00 pm, as well as Tuesday at 6:30 pm, Wednesday mornings at 7:30 am and Thursdays at 12:15 pm. Grace Church uses both Rite I and Rite II from the Book of Common Prayer for worship services, and conducts one 9 am Eucharist on Sundays in Spanish. Worship times vary in the summer, and during the seasons of Lent and Advent.

Architecture
The current church building was constructed in 1948. It has nineteen stained glass windows, including 6 in the Nave. The stained glass windows were made by Willet Hauser Architectural Glass, a leader in the Gothic Revival movement and creator of many of the windows in the National Cathedral, as well as the West Point chapel and other notable buildings. The twelve windows in the Nave portray twelve prominent church figures, including:

Paul of Tarsus
Athanasius
Augustine of Hippo
Bede
Dunstan
Anselm of Canterbury
Francis of Assisi
Thomas Aquinas
William Laud
Samuel Seabury, first bishop of The Episcopal Church
Edward Pusey
Bishop Fabian of the Anglican Diocese of Trinidad and Tobago

The stained glass window in the narthex is a rose window and contains the symbol for the Anglican Communion with the words, "the truth shall make you free."

The pulpit is wood carved, and shows images of five great British evangelists:
St. Patrick
St. Margaret of Scotland
Thomas Becket
John Donne
C. S. Lewis