If St. Mary?s Church was a beauty queen, she would be the unassuming contestant who charms everyone, no matter their taste.
“I?m often given to [the scripture] from God to Moses, ?Take off your shoes, this is holy ground,? when thinking about the church?s beauty,” said the Rev. Bill Smith, rector since 1972. “This church is a tradition preserved from generation to generation.”
The Harford County Episcopal church, built in 1848 with locally quarried gray rubble stone and granite trim, owes its existence to its first rector, the Rev. William Francis Brand, Smith said.
Brand organized the congregation and building plans, raised money for its construction and most likely designed the Abingdon church, according to church records.
The structure was never fully completed, according to Smith. “The bell cote wasn?t put on because Dr. Brand didn?t see much sense in it. He was the one who would ring it and the only one close enough to hear it.”
The church?s simplistic form and narrow lancet windows mark its Gothic Revival aesthetic, according to St. Mary experts.
The wooden pews inside the intimate church can seat 125 people, Smith said.
“Everybody knows everybody here,” he said. “When someone gets sick, the casseroles turn out.”
Congregates travel to the church from Elkton, Joppatowne, Edgewood, Forrest Hill and Jarrettsville, said Janice Worthen, sexton and church member for more than 15 years.
William Butterfield, an acclaimed English architect in the mid-19th century?s Oxford Movement, designed the church?s stained glass windows, recessed into the walls. The windows tell Jesus? story, from the Annunciation when the Archangel Gabriel delivered the message to Mary, “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you,” to Jesus? ascension into heaven. Shipped overseas from the Gibbs? Studio in London, the colorful ornaments spurred legislation to admit church art into the United States tax-free, according to church documents.
“Each part of the day inside the church is different because of the way the sun comes around and hits the windows,” Worthen said.
Paintings, depicting Bible figures such as Moses, Ezekiel, Isaiah and Jeremiah, hang in the chancel. The Rev. Dr. Johannes Oertell, a Bavarian Episcopal deacon, painted the portraits using Brand?s face for Moses and faces of important church members for other subjects.
The altar faces east, as Christian tradition dictates, to symbolize the anticipation of Jesus? return to Jerusalem. Elaborate mosaics, tiles and Italian marble decorate the east end to draw attention to the altar and sacraments, Smith said.
Church documents detailing its birth ask visitors to appreciate the past and present congregations.
“Please do not leave without offering a prayer of thanks for those who made this place from a dream into a reality and for those who continue to offer their labors in that same spirit,” the documents say.
