The oldest Catholic Church in Greenbrier County, the Catholic Church of Mary Immaculate, will be the site for an outdoor Mass on Oct. 3 at 10:30 a.m. The Mass will begin at 11 a.m. following the devotions.
Father James Conyers, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Ronceverte and St. Charles Borromeo Church in White Sulphur Springs, will officiate at the service which is the only scheduled Mass to be celebrated at the 118 year old church this year due to the COVID-19.
The Williamsburg congregation has never been an independent parish, but a Chapel of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Ronceverte, Sacred Heart Church in Rainelle and in the nineteenth century, a mission of the former Immaculate Conception Church in Lewisburg.
Serving the Irish and German Catholics who settled in northern Greenbrier County, the current church is the third church constructed by the area Catholics. The first two were destroyed by fire before the construction of the current church in 1902. Prior to having a church building, the Catholics met at Corkrean’s Store in Williamsburg at midnight on Saturday nights and walked the 18 miles into Lewisburg for early Mass.
Catholics and neighbors in the area maintain the church, its grounds and the Immaculate Conception Cemetery, the original site of the first church building. Leaders in the restoration and preservation of the current church are Dr. and Mrs. Larry Musselman and Steve Erwin of the Butler Mountain community.
“There will not be the usual covered dish lunch following the Mass,” noted Perk Berry Jr., grand knight of the Greenbrier Valley Council 8689 Knights of Columbus, previously known as the Alleghany Highlands Council, who continued, “Facial covering and social distances will be enforced for the devotions and Mass.”
The Church is located on Catholic Church Road, off the Frankford/Williamsburg Road, 4 ½ miles west of US 219 at Frankford.
For further information, telephone the office of the Catholic Churches of the Greenbrier Valley, 304-536-1813.
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