Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
St. Anne's Episcopal Church, 424 W. Market St., Warsaw, celebrated its 75th anniversary Saturday with a jubilee, which included a procession to various sites where church services were held before the current building was purchased in 1959.
A small group of Episcopalians started meeting 75 years ago for worship services in the bar of the downtown Warsaw Hayes Hotel, present site of the Lake City Bank headquarters, according to a previous news release.
Father Joseph Czolgosz, interim priest-in-charge at St. Anne’s, said the actual anniversary was back in August, but the 75th jubilee celebration was held Saturday because there were a number of people St. Anne’s wanted to be involved, including past rectors, and they wanted as many of those people to be able to attend. Most of the people attending Saturday’s jubilee were current St. Anne’s members, but he said there were a number of people that were part of the community that came back for the event.
The purpose of the jubilee is to help people remember what “has gone before us” and some of the past and current relationships, Czolgosz said.
He said St. Anne’s had four different geographic locations where they held worship services, including the current church on Market Street. Those attending Saturday’s event went to the first locations that gathered that identified as St. Anne’s community.
The procession visited the present site of the Lake City Bank headquarters, the First Christian Church at 202 W. Main St., Warsaw, and 221 Columbia St., which was a site of a St. Anne’s mission from 1952-58, said Bishop of the Dioceses of Northern Indiana Doug Sparks.
The idea for Saturday’s celebration was sparked 25 years ago at the 50th celebration of St. Anne’s founding, Czolgosz said. People “engaged in that walkabout, visiting those places, remembering the people and experiences that were in each other’s spaces ...”
Sparks said the jubilee was a wonderful time to look forward to the future.
During the procession, Bible verses were read at each stop and people were able to share memories.
After the procession, people gathered at St. Anne’s and shared memories of different things and there was a video screen that shared different memories over the past 75 years.
Czolgosz said, with the 75th anniversary, what “seems important in this community is remembering and giving thanks for all that has brought us to this day. A lot of people have contributed to St. Anne’s through the years, so remembering them is really important for us. And it is also is kind of a marker moment for us to say this is our past, but to what are we called in the future? So going forward, this kind of day marks a shift in our perspective - to what are we called, where are we going now. Given the history of St. Anne’s, the many ways ministry has been developed here.”
He said the church will continue to look at its ministry with the resources they have on behalf of the community, as well as continue partnerships they have with different organizations around the city to address the different needs of the people.”
St. Anne members have been instrumental in founding a number of area non-profits, including CASA, Beaman Home and Boomerang Backpacks, as well as participating in other organizations, such as Combined Community Services, Habitat for Humanity and Operation Read, according to a release.
Now that St. Anne’s has celebrated 75 years, Czolgosz said they are now focusing on what St. Anne’s mission is and what the needs are now in the community. There is a real emphasis on the food ministry in the area of the church because the church is in a food desert.
