St. Mary's Episcopal Church
We invite you to join us at Saint Mary's for worship, education, and community.
Saint Mary's is a diverse and inclusive community of native-born Cape Codders and "wash-a-shores" - singles, families, and retirees transplanted from places near and far.
Saint Mary's Church, located in Barnstable Village for over 100 years, is situated in a quaint complex of beautiful, weather-stained shingled buildings in the early rural English style, surrounded by lovely gardens and grounds.
If you would like to set up a meeting with our Priest, the Rev. Dr. Libby Gibson please call the church office at 508-362-3977. Our normal business hours are 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, Monday through Friday.
St. Mary's church and parish hall are both wheelchair accessible. Also, the priest can bring communion to parishioners in their pew if that would be more accommodating, just let an usher know when you arrive. Parishioners can also receive communion standing at the altar, rather than kneeling.
The original building of the church has been enlarged three times to accommodate its growing congregation. Since 1891, St. Mary's has grown from a "little weather-stained house of prayer with twenty-five people who were familiar with the service" to one of the most distinctive quaint and beautiful churches in the Northeast, extending Christian love, strength, grace and beauty to its more than 1,000 members and to the thousands of visitors who have joined them in the worship of God.
The church was built in early rural English style, according to the plans of W.R. Emerson of Boston, on land given in memory of Mary Kearney Cobb.
On July 5, 1891 the first service was held. The Church, however, was not consecrated, because of the deaths of local bishops, until St. Bartholomew's day in 1893! On that day, vacationing Right Reverend James S. Johnson, Bishop of Western Texas, performed the service of consecration. Most services were held in the summer only, with the clergy being imported from Boston. In 1895, the Grace Church Monthly of New Bedford reported, "St. Mary's, Barnstable, is the outpost and nucleus for missionary labour"!
St. Mary's church has grown from its humble beginnings to its present complex of church, parish hall, gardens, educational building and rectory. These are the physical realities, but substantial growth such as this can only take place when the Spirit takes hold of devoted Christians with vision and resources, identifies the needs and moves purposefully towards it fulfillment. A Book of Remembrance, recording the many memorials benefiting St. Mary's, is in the Narthex. Among them are the handsome doors, finely carved by Quentin R. Muson of Barnstable Village, which welcomed all to St. Mary's Church for many years. The cover of the Baptismal Font, adorned with bronze dolphins and shells was the creation of sculptor William Bocgar.
On the west wall, just above the baptismal font is a beautiful stained glass ‘three light' window, completed on Dec. 5, 1956 by Charles J. Connick. It is "devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, crowned and holding the Christ Child, with the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt". Another Connick creation, dated June 1960, on the north wall of the transept, is "the four seasons, with small figures of flowers, garden implements, trees, etc. on a warm simple background". A third Connick window installed in April 1979 in the north wall of the rear of the chancel, depicts Christ Blessing the Children.
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