The parish­ioners of St Jude An­gli­can Church in Ari­ma in­vite pub­lic sup­port for their plan to re­fur­bish and re­store the church build­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the church, the project, en­ti­tled Re­nais­sance, has the full ap­proval of Bish­op Claude Berke­ley and Fr JL El­der, parish priest.

As part of the fund-rais­ing dri­ve, the Re­nais­sance project will hold a mo­ti­va­tion­al brunch on June 8 at the Bish­op East/Trin­i­ty Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um, Trinci­ty. A va­ri­ety of en­ter­tain­ers will per­form at the event.

Guest speak­er will be the right Rev Leroy Er­rol Brooks, OBE, bish­op of the North East­ern Caribbean and Aru­ba.

Al­so fea­tured will be the Sig­nal Hill Alum­ni Choir, Xavier Strings, St Jude Mixed Choir, Ray­mond Ed­wards, sax­o­phon­ist Kurl-Ann Mc Each­nie and the An­nun­ci­a­tion Pan En­sem­ble.

"It is nec­es­sary to pre­serve the beau­ty and his­to­ry of St Jude, de­scribed by a liv­ing leg­endary of Ari­ma as a 'sa­cred ed­i­fice'," the re­lease said.

"This 128-year-old build­ing is one of the very few re­main­ing her­itage struc­tures in the Bor­ough of Ari­ma."

For tick­ets, which cost $200, call 667-3656 (parish of­fice) or 791-7591.

His­to­ry of St JudeAn­gli­can Church

In 1797, the British brought them­selves and their re­li­gion to Trinidad and the brigade chap­lain to the Forces be­came the first Church of Eng­land rec­tor on the is­land.

The Rev JH Chap­man worked on his own un­til 1823 when the Rev George Cum­mins, who had come from Bar­ba­dos for the con­se­cra­tion of Trin­i­ty Church, was in­vit­ed by Sir Ralph Wood­ford to be­come as­sis­tant min­is­ter at Trin­i­ty.

In 1824, the Church of Eng­land, hav­ing been un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury, be­came part of the new Dio­cese of Bar­ba­dos, which reached from St Kitts down to Trinidad–an area now served by five bish­ops.

In 1825, Bish­op Co­leridge ac­com­pa­nied by the gov­er­nor vis­it­ed Ari­ma.

In 1844 the Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Or­di­nance was passed. This di­vid­ed the Is­land in­to 16 parish­es. The Parish of St Jude com­prised Ari­ma, Gua­napo with the set­tle­ments of Cau­ra, Tu­rure, La Sei­va and the parts of Ca­roni east of the junc­tion of the Tacarigua and Cau­ra rivers.

In 1884 the foun­da­tion stone of the pro­posed church at Ari­ma was laid by Bish­op Co­leridge on the Fes­ti­val of St Si­mon and St Jude. On De­cem­ber 21, 1885 the Bish­op con­se­crat­ed St Jude Church.

The build­ing of con­crete and lo­cal wood cost �1,100 of which the Bish­op gave half. The first ren­o­va­tion was con­duct­ed by Rev HA Anstey, lord bish­op of T&T in 1940.

Around 1927, many boys from Ari­ma could not make it to St Mary's or QRC. Rev Mer­ry, priest of St Jude, opened the St Jude Col­lege near the church where boys of all re­li­gions were ac­cept­ed.

The col­lege was the on­ly in­sti­tu­tion pro­vid­ing sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion in Ari­ma and its en­vi­rons. St Jude pro­duced a lega­cy of fine­ly round­ed young men who lat­er held promi­nent po­si­tions in busi­ness­es and pub­lic ser­vice.

Promi­nent stu­dents in­clud­ed Irvin Brath­waite, Rex Ed­wards, Vin­cent Ed­wards (el­der broth­er of Ju­lia Ed­wards).

Mer­ry al­so en­cour­aged thrift by es­tab­lish­ing the Pen­ny Bank. On a Sat­ur­day morn­ing many peo­ple went to St Jude Parish Hall to par­tic­i­pate in the ba­sic bank­ing ex­er­cis­es of de­posit or with­draw­al.

"It is nec­es­sary to pre­serve the beau­ty and his­to­ry of St Jude, de­scribed by a liv­ing leg­endary of Ari­ma as a 'sa­cred ed­i­fice,'" the re­lease said.

"This 128-year-old build­ing is one of the very few re­main­ing her­itage struc­tures in the Bor­ough of Ari­ma."