A Short History of the Church of Our Saviour and
the Holy Apostles And the Church of Our Saviour, Santa Barbara
In 1923, the newly-built Amanda Chapel was dedicated in memory of Amanda Anderson McCarthy, the mother of J. Harvey McCarthy, who developed the nearby Carthay Circle residential area. The chapel was meant to be non-denominational much like the chapels at West Point or Annapolis; and the name Amanda Chapel can still be seen above the main doors of the church. The American politician and three times presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, spoke at the dedication and later Governor Goodwin Knight gave the church bell which had once hung in Mission Delores in San Francisco.
In 1928, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, the Right Reverend Joseph H. Johnson, purchased the Amanda Chapel which was renamed the Church of Our Saviour. In 1936, after a series of faithful vicars, the Church of Our Saviour called its first rector, the Reverend John Christfield Donnell. Mr. Donnell was a dynamic personality and led the church for twenty-one years. The Reverend Mr. Donnell purchased the church’s first organ and oversaw the building of a parish hall along the Olympic Boulevard side of the church. In 1957, after the Mr. Donnell’s retirement, the church called a Canadian priest Father Rollo Boas as its second rector. Father Boas led Our Saviour for ten years and then the church called Reverend Forest Ogden Miller who led his church out of the Episcopal Church during the turbulent period that followed the Minneapolis General Convention of 1976. A year later, Father Miller was called to a church in Texas and the Church of our Saviour was held together by four stalwart vestrymen: Mrs. Cooper, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Libourel and Mrs. Jones. These were the struggling years when the Church of Our Saviour hung on, supported the loyalty of its laity and the help of a Welsh priest, Father Enoch Jones.
In 1923, the Chapel of the Holy Apostles was founded as a storefront on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Glassell Park (south of Glendale). One of its early stalwart vicars was Father Charles Bailey who also served as an early vicar of the Church of Our Saviour. Soon, the church built a permanent sanctuary on South Verdugo Road and in 1951-1952, under the firm and soft-spoken leadership of Father Henry Softly, the Church of the Holy Apostles built a larger church building at 1003 South Verdugo Road just over the Glendale city limits. Father Softly retired in 1959 and the parish called Father Robert Spicer-Smith as its dynamic and charismatic second rector. Father Spicer-Smith resigned in 1966, and the parish called Father George H. Clendenin who led the parish in a more Anglo-Catholic direction.
In 1977, Father Clendenin led the Church of the Holy Apostles out of the Episcopal Church, and like the Church of Our Saviour, Holy Apostles was sued for its property by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Both churches struggled through four years of litigation. When it was over in late 1980, the Church of the Holy Apostles lost its property, and the Church of Our Saviour won its property. By this time, through the leadership of Right Reverend Robert Sherwood Morse, the Diocese of Christ the King had been founded. It was Bishop Morse who suggested that the two churches merge and the merger was completed by 1984, when a new corporate entity emerged: the Church of Our Saviour and the Holy Apostles.
In 1984, Father Clendenin accepted a call to Saint Peters, Oakland and the merged parish called its second rector, the Reverend Donald M. Ashman, who had been welcomed into the Episcopal Church by the Right Reverend Robert Burton Gooden at Holy Apostles in 1974. In 1977, he was asked to study for the Diaconate and, after three years of study and passing his canonicals, he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Morse on Ember Wednesday, 1980; and on July 1,1983, he was ordained a priest. In 1985, Father Ashman began a thirty-year association with Hollenbeck Palms Retirement Home in Boyle Heights. In 1987, he helped to found the Church of Our Saviour, Santa Barbara. He led the youth on a generation of camping and fishing trips to the High Sierras in California and White Mountains in Arizona. In 2012, he was consecrated Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of the Western States in the Province of Christ the King. In 2016, he was enthroned as the third Bishop of the Diocese of the Western States.
Over the last forty years many repairs and improvements have been made to Church of Our Saviour. In the late 1990s, the kitchen was rebuilt with new counter tile, a commercial stove, microwave and new floor tiles being added along with new floor tiles in the sacristy. To get more power safely to the upgraded kitchen, a new electrical panel was installed in the basement and new wiring was run to the kitchen via a pipe that was set in the original 1923 foundation. In 2008 it was decided to polish the walnut floors in the nave and eighty years of hardened dirt was polished away, as the floor was restored to its original brightness. Currently the rest rooms at the back of the church will be made handicapped accessible and the tile roof and flat roofs will be reconstructed.
The picture at left may not look like much but it tells a miraculous story. The upper half of the picture shows the new tile floor of the late nineties. The bottom shows the polished walnut floor of 2008. But there was a cement slab between the two. The middle part of the picture shows shows that concrete slab painted by Mrs. Nancy Hudson to look like brick tiles.
Over the last thirty-five years the Church of Our Saviour and the Holy Apostles has been blessed with a number of devout and dedicated assisting clergy. During the eighties, nineties and the first years of the new century, Fathers Anthony F. Rasch (now Bishop Rasch, HCCAR), Dario Polintan, William Fox and Eldon Bayard along and Deacon Larry Anderson served this parish faithfully. Fathers Fox and Bayard are gone to God – but their service will never be forgotten. In the last decade, our current curate Father Robert H. Greene joined the parish and Father Boyd R. Britton joined the parish in 1995, studied for orders and now assists both here and in Santa Barbara.
The Church Of Our Saviour, Santa Barbara had its first meeting in the home of Jack and Anna Gillespie in 1987 and quickly moved to a Methodist (now the Santa Barbara Korean Methodist) Church in Isla Vista near UCSB and then (almost as quickly) to Emanuel Lutheran Church in Santa Barbara. Bishop Ashman turned over the church to Father Daniel McGrath (now a Navy chaplain) who arranged for the church to be moved to its current home in the chapel of Bishop Garcia Diego High School. When Father McGrath’s successor moved away, Bishop Ashman resumed his office of Rector. For the last ten years, Bishop Ashman and Father Britton have been joined by Father Philip Ternahan who has been resourcing the Evening Prayer Services on Sundays and Wednesdays at 5:00 p.m.