Christ Episcopal Church (Winchester, Virginia)

Christ Episcopal Church, Winchester
Christ Episcopal Church, February 2022
Location	140 W. Boscawen St (at Washington St) Frederick County, Virginia
Country	USA
Denomination	Anglican
Churchmanship	Broad church
Website	christchurchwinchester.org
History
Founded	1738
Dedication	Christ
Consecrated	1829
Associated people	Lord Fairfax, Alexander Balmain, William Meade, Frederick W.M. Holliday
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Winchester Historic District contributing property
Designated	pre-1980
Architect(s)	Robert Mills
Architectural type	Church
Style	Gothic
Completed	1828
Construction cost	$5,300
Specifications
Length	65
Width	45
Administration
Diocese	Episcopal Diocese of Virginia
Parish	Frederick
Clergy
Priest in charge	Webster S. Gibson

Christ Church, or Christ Episcopal Church, is an Anglican church in Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia. The church was founded in 1738, with its first vestry elected in 1742. It is the seat of Frederick Parish, Diocese of Virginia, which once covered half of the Shenandoah valley and western Virginia, including what became West Virginia. The current church building, the parish's third, was designed by Robert Mills (who also designed the Washington Monument and Monumental Church in Richmond, Virginia) - it was completed in 1828, and is the oldest church building continuously used for religious purposes in the county.^[1] It is a contributing building in the local Historic District which predates the National Register of Historic Places, and which has been expanded three times since 1980.^[2]

The early organizational history of Christ Church differs significantly from that of the Episcopal Church in Frederick, Maryland, the nearby and similar gateway parish during colonial era settlement in Maryland, although the two churches had similar experiences of expansion and during the American Civil War, and remain prominent both architecturally and socially in their historic towns. Christ Church is now one of five Anglican churches in the historic Virginia gateway city. The other churches are: historic St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (founded in 1867, one of the first AME churches and also a contributing building to the historic district), St. Paul's on the Hill (which began as a mission of this church at the city's outskirts in 1966 and became an independent parish in 1996), St. Michael Anglican Church (founded by a British movement and using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer) and Winchester Anglican Church (founded as a mission of the Anglican Church in North America circa 2010) .