ANOTHER church in the Millicent district is closing as Saint Nicholas Anglican Church at Beachport will be deconsecrated next month.
The formal service of secularisation will be held at 10.30am on July 1 and will mark the end of 95 years of continuous worship in the stone structure.
The final service will be led by the Diocese of The Murray Vicar-General the Venerable Dr Peter Carlsson with the assistance of Millicent/Penola parish priest Father John Thompson.
At the end of the service, the pews will be rearranged to allow a shared lunch to be held.
Father John has extended a warm welcome to all past and present parishioners of St Nicholas to attend.
He has cancelled the services on the day which are held in his parish’s other churches at Millicent, Kalangadoo and Penola.
The closure of the church follows a number of meetings in 2017 involving the local community, worshippers and diocesan and parish officials.
The church has faced declining use in recent years and needs major repairs to its roof and walls.
The “new” St Nicholas was built of stone on an elevated site and was opened in 1923.
Among its benefactors have been pioneering Beachport harbour master Captain Richard Solly and late local grazier Miss Joyce Bowman who was a nursing sister with the Australian Army during the siege of Tobruk in World War II.
The “old” original Anglican Church dedicated to St Nicholas was a small timber structure and it dates back to the 1870s.
Owned by the National Trust and located adjacent to the former institute on Railway Terrace, it has been lovingly restored in recent years as a tourist attraction.
It retains many historic fittings from the former All Saints Anglican Church at Tantanoola and they are on permanent loan to the National Trust.
Regular services are held in Beachport at St Brigid’s Catholic Church and St Matthew’s By the Sea Uniting Church.
The Millicent/Penola Anglican Church Council has made preliminary approaches to these two denominations with a view to using their churches for services.
Such sharing of churches by various denominations occurs in other parts of regional South Australia such as Coonalpyn and Peterborough.
In the past decade or so, churches of various denominations have closed at Kalangadoo, Tantanoola, Glencoe and Mount Burr, reflecting a nationwide trend.
