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About UsWelcome to Grace Lutheran Church. We are a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located up north in Ely, Minnesota. Whether you live in Ely or are visiting the beautiful Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness we hope that you will join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 9:30 a.m. Come and experience Gods love with us. You are welcome here.
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Over a Century of History
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Grace Lutheran Church of Ely, Minnesota is not one hundred years old, but the two church congregations of this city that joined together in 1963, were both begun in 1902 over 100 years ago. The Bethany Lutheran Church was begun as a Swedish church and the Suomi Synod Church was begun as a Finnish church. It was language not theology that separated the two Lutheran churches. Most worship services were conducted in Swedish at Bethany Lutheran until 1925, while at the Suomi Synod Church, Finnish worship services were conducted regularly, with just one service a month in English until 1938.
In 1906, when the Bethany Lutheran Church congregation became part of the Minnesota Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church, the local parishioners bought a lot on Camp Street across from the First Methodist Church and built a wooden church, complete with a steeple. They shared a minister with a church in Tower, and continued to grow as a congregation. The Suomi Synod Church continued to grow, but had no church of their own. They met in homes, in the small wooden church on Chandler Road or in space they rented from the Bethany Church. In 1922, the congregation of the Suomi Synod Church agreed to buy a house and 5 lots at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Conan Street from Mrs. Hegfors for $1800. That house was torn down and a high basement was built there at that corner, just four blocks south of the Bethany Church. There was large central area for church service, a big kitchen, and a place for a raised altar area with white altar railings. Worship services were conducted, mid-week services were held, choirs were active, and Sunday School was held each week for as many as one hundred children. On September 17, 1939, a corner stone, complete with a time capsule, was laid on the southwest corner of the building. The building was constructed in semi-Gothic style of variegated red brick and artificial stone. The windows of cathedral glass were donated by parishioners and the interior is finished with oak trim, and has oaken floors. An altar picture of Jesus Christ was donated to the church by the Sunday school children. That picture still hangs at the top of the stairs in the present day church. Shortly after the new church was built there were discussions about changing the name of the church to something more easily pronounced. It was voted to change the name of Suomi Synod to Our Savior™s Lutheran Church. The parishioners raised funds to pay for a brick building that became the parsonage and purchase the new Moller classica pipe organ. Meanwhile, the 144 confirmed members of Bethany Lutheran Church on Camp Street were busy expanding their classroom space and meeting facilities by moving the White Iron Grade School from the country to the city to add on to their church. In 1960, when their respective synods joined on a national basis, Bethany and Our Saviors in Ely began considering a local merger. This happened when a Consummation Ceremony was conducted on February 23, 1963. It was voted immediately to change the name of the church to Grace Lutheran Church. The cooperative spirit continued as the men of the church did much work to help the carpenters add new stairways, two offices, classrooms, and a living-room and two kitchen areas to the new space that was added to the church in 1968. That same spirit prevailed, years later, in 1993, when the elevator was installed on the west side of the church. The church of God is not the building that was on the corner of Camp Street nor the one on the corner of Conan Street, it is the people who come together from small towns, large cities, other states or other countries to worship and have fellowship with the other parishioners as they learn of, and obey the teachings of the Lord. As we celebrate the Centennial years of Bethany Lutheran Church and Suomi Synod Lutheran Church in 2002, we thank God that He has led us to this anniversary. |