ST. JOHN'S ANGLICAN BUYING PROPERTY
On yesterday, 3 October 2023, clergy of St. John's Anglican Church, on Johns Island, announced the parish had entered into an agreement to buy 20 acres of land at 1643 Main Road, Johns Island. The purchase price was $1.6m, or $80k per acre. This site is near St. Johns High School. Main Rd. is a main artery running north-south from Maybank Hwy. to U.S. 17. The site is about a mile from the St. Johns parish church.
Find the announcement HERE .
St. Johns parish returned to the Diocese of South Carolina in 2022 and the first Episcopal services were held there in July of that year. By that time, the clergy and majority of the congregation had left to adhere to the new Anglican diocese and to meet in a local school. The separatists continued calling themselves St. Johns parish church even though St. Johns parish church was legally owned by the Episcopal diocese. The parish is one of the oldest in the diocese. The actual parish has had a revival under the vicar, the Rev. Callie Walpole, formerly the archdeacon of the Episcopal diocese.
The announcement says the separatist congregation raised the entire $1.6m in three months. Apparently the property is undeveloped, so the congregation will now have to find money for improvement and construction.
The SC supreme court finally ruled that 8 of the original 36 parishes in the lawsuit of 2013 were property of the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal diocese sold one, St. Matthew's., of Ft. Motte, to the Anglican occupants. One has been announced for sale, Holy Trinity, on Folly Rd., Charleston. One other, Good Shepherd, in West Ashley, Charleston, has not been designated publicly by the diocese. This leaves five that returned to the Episcopal diocese as functioning churches: St. Johns, of Johns Island; St. James, of James Island; St. David's, of Cheraw; St. Bartholomew's, of Hartsville, and Christ Church, Mt. Pleasant. Ironically, the Episcopal diocese offered to relinquish claim to these and all local churches that had gone along with the schism to the separatist diocese in June of 2015. The Anglican leadership curtly rejected the offer. If they had taken it, all 8 of the churches that have been returned to the EDSC would now be safely in the ADSC. In the end, courts ordered that the historic diocese, Camp St. Christopher, and 8 local churches had all been illegally seized by the separatists and must be returned to the rightful owner, the Episcopal diocese.
