History
of St. Stephen’s
St. Stephen’s got started almost 90 years ago back in 1908 as the Albany Avenue Mission in a building erected to be the parish house at 14 Lenox Street in Hartford.
The parish was organized and was admitted to the Diocese of Connecticut as St. Andrew’s Church in 1910.
In 1950, Mr. Frederick Raff donated the land to the parish that our building currently sits on.
In 1952, the parish moved into its new building and in 1958 built an addition on the north side of the building.
The name St. Andrew's was changed to St. Stephen’s in 1961 to avoid continued confusion with the other Episcopal parish, which is in Bloomfield, also called St. Andrew’s (it is now called Old Saint Andrew’s).
Through all the years and with the ups and downs of our parish life we continued to persevere.
However, our community life was dramatically
redirected when on July 7, 1993, lightening struck the cross on the top of the
cupola and started a fire in the attic. Even though the firefighters quickly
responded, they could not manage to save the nave of our worship space. We were,
of course, devastated by the fire, destruction, and loss, but slowly we came to
see the fire as a blessing. Our pipe organ was refurbished, the worship space
has been remodeled, and our entire building is now handicap accessible.
As grateful as we all are for our beautiful
new structure, we know that God’s true gift to us has been the renewing and
strengthening of our faith and a desire to recommit ourselves to the ministry of
Jesus Christ in our community and the world.