Bishop Victoria Matthews just happened to be onsite when a structural engineer declared an historic chapel would have to be torn down immediately. Anglican Taonga reports:
The damage to churches is so widespread in Christchurch – and made worse with every jolting aftershock – that Bishop Victoria Matthews had almost no warning that the chapel had to be substantially demolished by nightfall.
So instead of wearing her episcopal robes as she pronounced the final, formal, poignant prayer of deconsecration, she was wearing a yellow hard hat and a raincoat.
The chapel, which will be totally demolished by day’s end today, has been a locus for faith and worship for more than 100 years.
In the beginning, it was built to serve St Saviour’s orphanage. The orphanage has long gone, but the chapel found a new life when the Churchill Courts’ complex was built around it
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First thing every morning since the Canterbury quake, Bishop Victoria Matthews has called her crisis team together.
They’ve been meeting in the Bishop’s study at the end of the garden of her Christchurch home. Praying first, then updating each other on the rolling crisis.
They’ve been meeting there because the multi-storey Anglican Centre in Kilmore St is shut down until it’s had the all clear from structural engineers.
Find the official incident map of the quake here.