Foundation , the first building constructed to house the parish The parish was founded after a schism within Raleigh's first Episcopal church, Christ Church, making the Good Shepherd the second Episcopal parish in the capital city. The split occurred following a disagreement between a large number of parishioners at Christ Church over the ethics of
pew rentals, a practice in which families bought the right to sit in pews for a number of years or for life. This difference of opinion created tension throughout the 1870s as the more vocal group of church members, who would later break away from the parish, argued that the rental policy relegated Raleigh's poorer residents to a form of
second-class citizenship, as they were commonly forced to the back of the church or to the balconies. Eventually this disagreement came to a head, and in 1873 the Reverend Edward R. Rich of St. Paul's Church in
Clinton, North Carolina, suggested that a new Episcopal church in Raleigh be created. In the first days of 1874, Christ Church officially split with the consent of all parties involved and the bishop, and the new group of congregants announced the formation of the Church of the Good Shepherd. He conducted the first service on February 15, 1874, assisted by the
Rt. Rev. Theodore B. Lyman, D.D. in the historic Tucker Hall on
Fayetteville Street. On Easter Day, March 28, 1875, the congregation held its first service at the church's new location in the building designed by
Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, now referred to as
All Saints Chapel. The new parish was admitted to the Diocese at its annual convention, held in Wilmington on May 21, 1874.
Call for a New Building and Pro-cathedral Designation By the 1890s, it had already become clear that the congregation had outgrown its original home, and was in need of a new building to accommodate its members. Without a permanent rector after the departure of the parish's third priest early in the year, the bishop of the diocese invited The Rev. Dr. Isaac McKendree Pittenger, D. D. from Long Island to visit Raleigh for the winter and conduct pastoral care work. In the spring of 1891, he was invited by the congregation to serve as the fourth rector of the church and accepted shortly thereafter. However, it is believed that at the diocesan convention, the Bishop was not able to garner enough support from the delegates to name Good Shepherd as the permanent cathedral, and the church therefore abandoned the Pro-cathedral title by late 1895. Despite this setback, the congregation was still committed to constructing the new building and funds began to be set aside for its construction. On March 8, 1897, the parish's vestry moved to solidify plans to construct a new building, which at the time was to serve as a memorial to the recently deceased Bishop Lyman.
Construction of current building and facilities The cornerstone was laid on
All Saints' Day, November 1, 1899, to a crowd of church members, government officials and academic presidents. The design for the building was first created by New York architect
Robert W. Gibson from the plans of Rev. Pittenger, The first services in the new structure were held on May 17, 1914, Easter Day, with the evening
Confirmation service seeing a congregation of over a thousand. Constructed of North Carolina and New Hampshire granite with a roof of native pine, The chapel was transported roughly half a mile to its current location along Raleigh's East Street, just west of the
Historic Oakwood neighborhood.
Notable Outreach Efforts St. John's Guild and Rex Hospital Just a few years after the church had organized, the Rev. Edward Robbins Rich, the parish's first rector, felt that Raleigh was in need of a religious organization that could help establish opportunities for public education, encourage the expansion of music, and promote the health of the community. On October 31, 1877, roughly 40 men from the church and the community responded to a call from the rector and organized the St. John's Guild. The guild would eventually grow to include many of the region's Episcopal priests, and any man over the age of 15 was eligible to join, though women could also join as contributing members. In its early years, the guild was driven by Rev. Rich and Richard H. Battle, an attorney and chartered member of the church, who was also the son of state Supreme Court Justice
William Horn Battle. With Battle's influence, the guild began to include many high-profile lawyers and doctors, including Dr. Peter Evan Hines who was the state's Surgeon General. On December 12, 1877, the guild opened the city's first public library, located in the Holleman Building on Fayetteville Street, which was free and open to the public six days a week. The library closed just a few years later in 1880 due to a lack of funding. In 1878, the guild embarked on its far more prosperous campaign, the establishment of St. Johns Hospital. The hospital continued to grow through the 1880s and 1890s, increasing both the number of patients it could house, and the size of its workforce. Following the death of John Rex, a wealthy Raleigh tanner, a trust was opened in his name for the establishment of a hospital in the Raleigh area. Recognizing the difficulty of opening a new hospital, the trustees approached the guild with the proposition of purchasing the hospital. In July 1893 after much negotiation, the guild agreed to sell St. John's Hospital to the trustees, and after acquiring financial assistance from the city,
Rex Hospital opened in May 1894. The hospital has since grown into one of the state's largest and is composed of several different facilities.
Shepherd's Table Soup Kitchen In 1979, congregants of the parish discussed the issue of homelessness in Raleigh which had significantly surged in the city throughout the 1970s. At the time there were few
hospice houses or shelters open in the area, and city officials had approved the destruction of boarding houses and low-cost motels in order to
gentrify downtown low-income neighborhoods. In the early 1980, the parish vestry passed a motion to approve a $3,000 grant for a soup kitchen on a trial basis. The Shepherd's Table Soup Kitchen was opened in April 1980 and within the first 14 days, 473 people had been fed. Throughout the early 1980s the kitchen fed around a thousand individuals a month, primarily with food donated by individuals and nearby restaurants.
Rectors == Worship ==