St. John's African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Norfolk has been awarded a $522,000 grant to help restore its historic sanctuary, a building so damaged by water infiltration that the congregation has had to worship elsewhere for years. The funding comes as the church works toward an estimated $1 million restoration bill, with leaders hoping the repairs will let worshippers return to their original sanctuary by 2027.
The grant was awarded through Virginia's Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Historic Preservation Grant Program, according to WAVY.com. The church also received a separate $163,000 award from the National Fund for Sacred Places, though that grant requires a matching contribution from the congregation, as reported by WTKR. Pastor Christian Savage told the station that, between the two grants and the remaining gap, “Altogether, it will probably take about a million dollars” to finish the job.
A Sanctuary Dating to 1888
St. John's current sanctuary was built in 1888, per the same WTKR report, and the building's problems are not new. Water infiltration had been an issue for years, but the station notes that “during the COVID pandemic, a lot of those problems accelerated,” ultimately damaging the structure enough that the congregation moved its services into another room. Since then, the church has kept its focus on one goal: getting back into its original sanctuary, with WTKR reporting the congregation's eye has always been on a return home “sometime in 2027.”
The restoration work itself is listed as a building envelope restoration, according to a separate funding notice carried by EIN Presswire. That phrase typically covers work on a structure's exterior shell — walls, roof, and windows — the kind of repairs needed to stop the kind of water damage that pushed St. John's congregation out of its sanctuary in the first place.
Part of a Larger Statewide Grant Round
St. John's award was one of eight historic preservation projects funded in the same round, which totaled $2,052,650 across the state, with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and Virginia Board of Historic Resources announcing the initiative. Per the EIN Presswire notice, the package included seven rehabilitation or stabilization projects alongside one archaeological data recovery project.
The preservation fund behind the grant was established by the Virginia General Assembly in April 2022 under Virginia Code Section 10.1-2202.5, the same report states. The fund provides grants for acquisition, protection, and rehabilitation of historic and archaeological sites tied to Virginia's Black and Indigenous communities and people of color. Under the underlying code, grants can also support a prospective purchase or one already completed, so long as a completed acquisition took place no more than 12 months before the application, according to the Virginia General Assembly's legal code.
A Church With Deep Roots in Norfolk's Black History
St. John's holds a notable place in the city's architectural and religious history. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources' register entry describes the 1888 completion of the church as marking the start of “a period of ascendancy for Norfolk's African American congregations,” noting that St. John's was the first in what became a series of architecturally prominent Black churches built in the city.
That legacy sits alongside a broader, and often less fortunate, story of historic Black churches in Norfolk struggling to survive. The former Norfolk Christian Temple building in Park Place, a Gothic Revival structure built in the 1920s, sat vacant and declining for roughly two decades before investors bought it for $265,000 in 2022 hoping to restore it — only for it to go back on the market for $1.2 million earlier this year, according to The Virginian-Pilot. Not every outcome has ended in another sale, though: in 2024, Norfolk's redevelopment authority approved turning the former Park Place Baptist Church into senior housing with a Richmond-based developer, the same outlet reported.
For now, St. John's has state and national backing in hand, but the congregation's full return to its 1888 sanctuary still depends on closing the remaining funding gap toward that roughly $1 million total.
