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The sanctuary seating capacity is 625; Evans Chapel, 136. On any
given Sunday morning both worship centers are occupied for three
services, the chapel at 8:15 and the sanctuary at 9:30 and 11:00, except
during July and August. The sanctuary cornerstone was laid in June 1954. Dedicatory services were held on successive Sundays from April 17, 1955, through May 15. Sunday, October 2, 1955 the sanctuary organ was dedicated in a special recital by Dr. August Maekelberghe of Detroit. The original Royal Oak First Presbyterian Church building, dedicated in 1916 and razed in 1962, contained a sanctuary for 300 parishioners and during its last seven years stood alongside the present sanctuary. With the new sanctuary's completion, the original building was renovated and renamed Fellowship Hall. For almost a half-century - forty-six years - that original Tudor Gothic limestone structure was a Royal Oak land mark, although its congregation was the youngest of the city's Protestant denominations. It stood on a plot of approximately two acres in Hendrie subdivision, for a time accessible only by footpath from Fourth Street. Today the property is bordered by Hendrie Boulevard, Sixth and Pleasant streets. That now demolished building was the spiritual home of the seventy nine founders whose efforts in 1914 gave birth to the Royal Oak First Presbyterian Church. Ironically, a delegation of the founders had to persuade an apparently apathetic Detroit Presbytery Board of Church Extension that Royal Oak needed or could support a new Presbyterian congregation. To succeeding generations the founders left a heritage of talent, energy, stability and faith. |
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