A HISTORY OF GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH (Taken from the official website)

Grace Parish was founded in 1886 by Episcopalians in downtown New Orleans after Christ Church, the 200 year-old mother church of Episcopalians in Louisiana and the oldest non-Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans, moved from Canal Street to an uptown location. Grace Parish had two earlier church buildings on South Rampart Street and at 1501 Canal Street, respectively. In 1915, Grace Church founded a parochial mission in Mid City, named St. Matthias Mission. In the 1920s the property at 3700-3720 Canal Street was purchased for St. Matthias and the mission congregation met in a large Victorian home at that location.

In the early 1950s, Grace Parish was outgrowing its 1501 Canal Street facility and began considering a move. During this period, the Texas Company (TEXACO), approached Grace Parish about razing the church building and leasing the property for an office building. In 1951, the old church was razed and Grace Parish and St. Matthias Mission were reunited. The congregation worshipped in the large Victorian home at 3720 Canal Street while a new large facility in the Modernist style was built on the corner of Canal and South Telemachus Streets. The mission congregation is remembered by the designation of the chapel of Grace Church as St. Matthias Chapel (Joe W. Brown Memorial).

Our current buildings were dedicated fifty years ago on 12-13 September 1954 by The Rt. Rev'd Girault Jones, Bishop of Louisiana, and The Rt. Rev'd Iveson Noland, Bishop Suffragan of Louisiana.