St James’ Church, Sydney
St James’ Church, commonly known as St James’, King Street, is an Australian heritage-listed Anglican parish church located at 173 King Street. Consecrated in February 1824 and named in honour of St James the Great, it became a parish church in 1835. Designed in the style of a Georgian town church by the transported convict architect Francis Greenway during the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie. The church remains historically, socially and architecturally significant.
About St James’ Church, Sydney in brief
St James’ Church, commonly known as St James’, King Street, is an Australian heritage-listed Anglican parish church located at 173 King Street. Consecrated in February 1824 and named in honour of St James the Great, it became a parish church in 1835. Designed in the style of a Georgian town church by the transported convict architect Francis Greenway during the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie. The church remains historically, socially and architecturally significant. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 3 September 2004; and was listed on the Register of the National Estate, and has been described as one of the world’s 80 greatest man-made treasures. The underground St James railway station is named after the church. The building is the oldest one extant in Sydney’s inner city region. It is part of a group of notable colonial buildings along Mac quarie Street, which runs from Queen’s Square to Sydney Harbour. At the time of construction, the church and the buildings nearby were \”Sydney’s most distinguished structures … on the highest ground, and, socially speaking, in the best part of the city\”. The precinct around the church is informally known as ‘St James’. The building was commissioned by Governor Lachlans MacQuarie in 1819, designed by the convict architect and constructed between 1820 and 1824 using convict labour. Its original ministry was to the convict population of Sydney and it has continued to serve the city’s poor and needy in succeeding centuries.
The teaching at St James’ has a more liberal perspective than most churches in the diocese on issues of gender and the ordination of women. It maintains the traditions of Anglican church music, with a robed choir singing psalms, anthems and responses. It initially shared responsibility for an area that extended as far as Sydney Heads. Its boundaries have since remained essentially unchanged. The geographical parish of StJames’ is one of 57 parishes of Cumberland County, New South NSW, and it originally shared responsibility with St Philip’s Church, York. It became the official centre of activity for the growing population of the growing St James’s parish. The first service was held in the unfinished church on the Day of Epiphany, 6 January 1822, the text being from Isaiah, Chapter 60: “Arise! Shine for the glory of the Lord, thy light has come upon thee”. It was anticipated in the Sydney Gazette that the church would hold 2,000 people, when it was consecrated on February 11, 1824. However, it was able to hold more people than Philip’s and clergy meetings as well as clergy meetings were held there as well. In 1835 the church became the centre of official activity within St James’’s parish, as it was the only church in the area to hold clergy ordinations as it had more people to hold than St Philip’ s Church. It has a steeple at the western end to serve as a church.
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This page is based on the article St James’ Church, Sydney published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
