Our history begins around 1883, when Mrs. Mary King Troupe and Miss Louise Nightingale from nearby St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Brunswick started a Sunday School at their church for the colored people of the city. The classes grew, and in 1885, St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church became an organized mission of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The new church was named after the African saint, Athanasius of Alexandria, the 20th Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, from 328 to 373.

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Shortly after the first Sunday School classes were offered to the community, a wood frame structure was purchased and furnished. This original church building was destroyed by a violent storm in 1896. Undeterred by this loss, church members worked hard to replace it as soon as possible.
The tabby church that replaced the original structure cost $3,000. Gifts from the St. Augustine League, the Women’s Auxiliary, donors from New York and other female benefactors helped the congregation to quickly rebuild. The new Gothic Revival-styled church building was made of tabby, a masonry building material made of sand, lime, and oyster shells. Today, St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church is one of the few tabby buildings from the 19th century left in Brunswick.

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In 1946, a new Rectory and Parish Hall were built to replace previous buildings lost in a fire. At that time, the exterior of the tabby church was covered with stucco, as it appears today. The interior of the church embodies tranquility, peace and reverence. The soaring dark wood ceiling of the nave reveals a nautical influence, symbolizing the journey to eternal life through Christ.

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In 1884 St. Athanasius started a parochial school adjacent to the church, called Memorial Hall, which developed into a training and high school, incorporated in 1910. The school grew steadily in size and efficiency, becoming a good secondary school with domestic science, manual training, an Industrial Arts curriculum as well as organized sports. The onset of the Great Depression forced it to close its doors in 1928.

Read Letters from the Past, Including W. E. B. Dubois, co-founder of N.A.A.C.P.

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In 2000, a major renovation included the installation of stained glass memorial panels in the sanctuary, highlighted by three Civil Rights stained glass panels honoring the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.