Christ Church Parish Middlesex, VA - A Church and its Struggles with History
This history covers Christ Church in Middlesex from its earliest beginnings with the Peankatanck Church in 1642 and the union of Peankatanck and Lancaster parishes to form Christ Church Parish in 1666, up until the present day, 2016.
Christ Church Parish and its written records survived Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, when the records of many churches were burned, thus giving the Parish an historical record almost unique among Virginia churches.
The book describes in detail the construction of the church building in 1714.
The colonial English governor in Virginia was given the powers of a bishop in England and the churches were handed many governmental responsibilities along with the power to tax all citizens - taxation without representation - a duty many citizens came to resent.
The author has attempted to put Christ Church Parish' history over more than 350 years into context with description of the history of the Church of England both in the British Isles and in the colonial government, the conversion into the Protestant Episcopal Church after the American Revolution and the vicissitudes of Disestablishment, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the social changes of the 20th century.
While at the time of the War of 1812, under the pressures of Disestablishment , the church building and its ministry collapsed, Christ Church Parish was rebuilt and re-consecrated in the 1840s. Though it was dependent upon support from the Diocese for a century, in the 1950s it became once more financially independent and today stands as a monument to the faith of its founders, of those who resurrected it and of its current congregation.
The author, Christ Church Parish Historian Gordon Eliot White, has been a journalist and historian since 1949, with seven previously-published books and a shorter history of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, done in 1976.
The book is available from Mr. White at PO Box 129, Hardyville, VA 23070 804-695-4628 gewhite122@gmail.com or from the Christ Church Office. The price is $39.95 ( plus $3.50 postage, if mailed)
