Renovation of Gothic cathedral nears an end

COLUMBIA -- Scaffolding still obscures the entrance of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, and inside craftsmen are busy manning miter saws and layering ceiling plaster and floor tiles.

But a sneak peek inside the Gothic downtown church suggests a glorious restoration, once the $7 million project is finished.

It has been a long three years for the 4,200 members of the congregation, who have worshipped and wed inside the adjacent Averyt Hall in the Trinity Center for Missions and Ministry during the absence from the cathedral.

The completion of the mammoth project comes at a difficult moment for the congregation. The cathedral's longtime dean, the Very Rev. Philip C. Linder, was suspended July 14 by Bishop W. Andrew Waldo, the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina. The cause of the action has not been publicized.

But Mary Rainey Belser, who leads the Bicentennial Restoration Committee, said the final stages of construction will go on with no interruption and the cathedral should reopen this fall.

"We're just going with the flow," Belser said. "Somehow it all seems to come together."

It also will be extremely gratifying for Wilson Farrell, the man who has headed up the project for Trinity and overseen renovations from rooftop trusses to the placement of nearly invisible sprinkler heads.

He and Steve Davis, superintendent of Hood Construction, the project contractor, have met daily, reworking their meticulous weekly plans as workers uncovered unexpected rot and termites, leaks and leaning staircases.

All that has been repaired.

The church has been rewired, its heating and air conditioning systems upgraded, and a new sprinkler system installed.

The brick walls have been replastered, painted a light cream shade and scored to resemble blocks of an ancient gothic church. And the wood, from the pews to the staircases and arches, has been repaired, replaced and renewed. The flooring, including refinishing the wooded floors and laying the stone tiles, has yet to be done.

The painting of the apse with a bright red paint and gold overlays hints at the spectacular nature of the finished cathedral.

Although the current sanctuary was not built until 1847, the church will celebrate the bicentennial of its founding in 1812. That was the year a group of Columbians, with the help of Lowcountry Episcopalians, incorporated as the first Episcopal parish in the backcountry of South Carolina.

In 1834, Peter Shand, a young lay reader from Charleston, was ordained as rector and began a 52-year ministry at Trinity. It was Shand who envisioned building a cathedral, which was completed in 1847.