All Souls is a church of the Anglican Church

Anglican Church of Australia

The Anglican Church of Australia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. It was previously officially known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania...

 in the Diocese of Sydney, Australia. The church is located on the corner of Norton & Marion Streets, Leichhardt, New South Wales

Leichhardt, New South Wales

Leichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...

. Leichhardt is a suburb of Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, in the State of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

.

First building

The church building to house All Soul’s was opened for public worship

Worship

Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...

 on Saturday, January 7, 1882. The building and the land together cost £800 .

Current church building

Soon after the first building was opened, the first Rector of the parish Thomas Holme encouraged the parish to build a new and bigger church to house the congregation. The new church was designed by Blacket Bros . This is the architectural firm founded by Edmund Blacket

Edmund Blacket

Edmund Thomas Blacket was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St...

 who was a prominent Anglican Church architect of the eighteenth century.. The church is designed in the early English gothic style. It has a simple brick façade with a tile roof and is finished with sandstone details. There is also a box shaped tower with a slender style spire which was built at a later time.
The building is heritage listed as be notable for its landmark tower . The church’s website describes the building is being “distinctively evangelical with its short sanctuary and lack of cruciform design”.
The first service in the new building was conducted on 2 February 1884.

In the news

The church came to notice in the media with its introduction of a “café” style church service in 2004. This was to accommodate the changing nature of the Leichhardt area since the post-war immigration of Europeans to Australia. Since World War II, the area has become known as the “Little Italy” of Sydney. The café service was there a natural extension of the café streetscape of the Norton Street .

Later during the soccer world cup, the church posted a sign outside its building that read "Jesus saves better than Kalak" . Later, another sign read "We're putting the mental back into fundamentalism." and then later "We're putting the fun back into fundamentalism .

Prominent members of Ministry

The Rev Dr Leon Morris, later New Testament scholar and Principal of Ridley Melbourne, taught Sunday School at the branch church of St Mark's Lilyfield as a young man in the 1930s.

The Rev. Dr. Tim Foster was appointed in May 2002 and left in May 2009 to the role of Director of Ridley Melbourne. His replacement, announced on 7 June 2009, was Rev. Darren Hindle, a graduate of Sydney Mission and Bible College who has previously served at St. Andrew's Anglican Church, Kowloon, Hong Kong and St John's, Shaughnessy, Vancouver, British Columbia, and as Anglican Chaplain to the Royal Australian Navy.

Notable parishioners

• Thomas Chaplin Breillat, merchant and founder of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce .

External links

• Church website, http:// http://www.allsouls.net.au
• Anglican Diocese of Sydney website http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/
• New South Heritage Office, http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_01_2.cfm?itemid=1940284