St. Augustine's of Canterbury, Wiesbaden

The Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury in Wiesbaden, Germany (also known as the "English Church") is a parish of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe. It occupies a Gothic Revival church building at the corner of Frankfurter Straße and Kleine Wilhelmstraße and is named for Augustine of Canterbury, a Roman missionary, who founded the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The red brick building is located next door to the Villa Clementine and is thus directly across from the park Warmer Damm in close proximity to Wilhelmstraße.HistoryThe cornerstone of the present building was laid on 3 June 1863. As early as 1836, however, German church records indicate that British subjects taking the waters at the international spa of Wiesbaden had been holding English-speaking services of their own. At the time of the church's construction, the church was not incorporated as a legal entity, so the property was held in trust by the Kurhausaktiengesellschaft, the company responsible for coordinating the spa amenities of Wiesbaden.Among the early church leaders were Christopher Benson, brother of Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his wife Agnes, daughter of the Rev. Professor Robert Walker of Oxford. Benson served as churchwarden and treasurer, but also gave generously to the foundation of the English Church in Lugano. He died and was buried in Wiesbaden in 1890.