Recently I was in Waipara and had some time on hand to explore the area. I decided to eat my lunch in the shade beside St Paul’s Anglican Church in Glenmark. I was fortunate enough that right then a “friend of Glenmark Church” arrived to get something out of the building. That way I could briefly see the interior of the church.

This is an impressive rural brick church built in 1906/1907. It was significantly damaged during the earthquakes. Restoration efforts have been ongoing for many years. The building shell has been fully restored, as well as the windows and the original pipe organ. This is one of the biggest pipe organs in a rural church in the southern hemisphere. It is an impressive piece of machinery.

However, services are not yet held back at St Paul’s, because there are insufficient funds to complete the project. The next step would be plastering and painting the inside. Fundraising efforts are still ongoing.

Just as in Papanui, the large stained-glassed chancel window shows St Paul, but in this case not with the symbols of the Sword of the Spirit and the Word of God, but rather showing him during his speech in Athens.

When I walked through the Glenmark Cemetery, which is some distance down the road, right beside the railway line, I came across the headstone of an early vicar of Glenmark and the name sounded familiar. It was the Reverend Canon Henry Thomas Purchas, who was the Vicar of St Paul’s Papanui from 1895 to 1900 and the Vicar of St Paul’s Glenmark from 1913 to 1921. He had left Papanui because of throat problems. After initially hoping to return to Papanui, he resigned as vicar in 1901. During his time St Paul’s Papanui seems to have used more high-church practices. Soon after his departure the Parish seemed to return to more low-church services.

I am not sure what Rev Canon Purchas did between 1901 and 1913. He certainly did do some writing during that time. He wrote leaflets on the history of the Anglican Church in New Zealand published in 1907 to mark 50 years of the constitution of the Church. In 1909 his book on Bishop Harper and the Canterbury settlement was published and in 1914 his book “A history of the English Church in New Zealand”.

His voice must have healed sufficiently to take up the post as Vicar of Glenmark.  But not long after he took up the role there, his wife Lily died aged 53 years. He continued as the Vicar of Glenmark and died in 1921, aged 61 years.

That wasn’t the only time a former Vicar of St Paul’s Papanui went to Glenmark—Mandy Neal also served there in recent times. It is interesting to find the connections between parishes. We are probably more connected than we realise through personal association with many parishes and churches.