St Marks Unitarian Church
The St Marks Unitarian Church is a Unitarian church building in the Scottish capital Edinburgh . The church is located on Castle Terrace near Edinburgh Castle and Princes Street in central Edinburgh.
history
In 1792, the first Unitarian church in Scotland was organized in Montrose . One of its leading representatives was the former Anglican pastor Thomas Fyshe Palmer , under whom Unitarian congregations also emerged in Glasgow and Edinburgh, which merged to form the Scottish Unitarian Association in 1812/1813 . In October 1835, the Edinburgh congregation finally opened the current church building.
The church, named after the Evangelist Mark , was designed by the Scottish architect David Bryce. It is characterized by a baroque exterior facade and an interior with mannerist influences. On the facade is the inscription from 1st Timothy There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (in German: One is God, and one is the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ), which makes the anti-Trinitarian belief of the Unitarians clear.
The interior initially offered space for several hundred people and is surrounded by a gallery. The barrel-shaped roof and the gallery are supported by cast-iron pillars designed in the classicism style. The central element is the sense of a typical Protestant preaching church the pulpit . This is flanked in the south wall by two mosaic windows. At the rear of the church is the Upper Hall, a smaller meeting room with a capacity for 60 people and a kitchen with a bar. Below the Upper Hall is another meeting or rehearsal room, the Lowwer Hall . The congregation's first preacher was George Harris, who had previously served in the Unitarian Church in Glasgow. In 1881 the interior was redesigned and the seating capacity was reduced.
literature
- Archibald MacWhirter: Unitarianism in Scotland . Scottish Church History Society 1957.
Web links
Coordinates: 55 ° 57 ′ 11.4 " N , 3 ° 12 ′ 19.1" W.