Church Not Home For Holiday

TAMPA - The Christmas season feels a little different for parishioners at St. Lawrence Catholic Church this year.

There are no statues in the chapel. No kneelers at the altar. No pews.

Worshippers at the Himes Avenue church have been displaced to a church function hall since early November, when an electric candle caught fire and filled the church with thick black smoke and soot.

No one was hurt in the Nov. 3 fire and the church received no significant structural damage, but the smoke from the candle, which church officials think smoldered at least six hours, got into every nook of the 26-year-old chapel, curled all the way up the 40-foot ceilings and blackened every statue, pew and pillar.

Even some of the priests' vestments, which have since been washed several times, still have a charcoal smell, said the Rev. Tom Morgan, the church's pastor.

Restoration efforts are expected to continue through the new year. Worshippers hope to back inside the chapel by Easter, in March.

Although the church family has been uprooted during one of the most holy times of the year, parishioners and church officials are trying to put things in perspective.

"The first thing that hit me was that there are people who are going through much worse," Morgan said. "The church didn't burn down, thank goodness."

Also, the repairs, which are expected cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, are covered by the church's insurance policy - another good thing, church officials said.

Sunday morning, plywood covered every window, wall and surface space in the 26,000-square-foot chapel. Tall scaffolding jutted out from the floor.

"The smoke and soot went everywhere," Morgan said as he walked around the interior.

The parish's Masses have been held in nearby Higgins Hall, as have baptisms.

Sunday Mass attendance has remained steady, Morgan said.

"I don't mind it at all," said parishioner Richard Silva, who has been a member of St. Lawrence since 1959.

Mass is still the same: the hymns, the prayers, the communion. It's the familiarity of the actual church that he misses, he said.

"I miss the statues. I miss going down to the altar to kneel," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting back there."