After 170 years, the journey continues for parishioners at Christ Episcopal Church and its neighbors. The church will celebrate its 1839 founding with “An Illuminating Journey Through Time,” a week of services, lectures, tours, music and meals beginning Nov. 1.

If you go

Christ Episcopal’s 170th anniversary celebration will be Nov. 1-8. Events are free and will take place at or start from the church at 1115 Main St. Call 601-638-5899.

• Nov. 1 — Re-enactment of the Rev. Henry Sansom, rector of CEC for 38 years, by Jim Miller, 6 p.m., followed by ancient evening prayers and hymns and period-era refreshments.

• Nov. 2 — Church tours, 10 a.m.-noon; neighborhood “All Souls” walking tour conducted by Dave Benway and concluding with a reception at Duff Green Mansion, 7 p.m.

• Nov. 3 — Driving tours of the Christ Church neighborhood conducted by Benway, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; tours leave on the hour.

• Nov. 4 — Church tours, 10 a.m.-noon, chapel open all day; healing service, 12:15 and 5:30 p.m., in the chapel.

• Nov. 5 — “The Rector’s Wartime Experience,” lecture by Terry Winschel, Vicksburg National Military Park historian, 6 p.m.; cultural and period music, 7:15.

• Nov. 6 — Church tours, 10 a.m.-noon.

• Nov. 7 — “The Art of Pilgrimage: Illuminated Journey,” a two-part presentation by the Rev. Brad Berglund, 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m.; lunch and dulcimer concert by Virginia Monsour and friends, noon-1 p.m.

• Nov. 8 — Holy Eucharist, “Re-inventing Worship” and “Pilgrims in the 21st century,” with Berglund and the Very Rev. Chan Osborn de Anaya, 10 a.m.

The celebration starts with an ancient service of prayers and hymns and progresses through time, culminating Nov. 8 with a modern, 21st century service, said the Very Rev. Chan Osborn de Anaya, rector of the church.

The concept of a continuing pilgrimage — for individuals as well as the church as a whole — will be stressed, as well as Christ Episcopal’s historic place in its Main Street neighborhood. All events are free, with the public enthusiastically welcome and invited, she said.

“It’s holding to the idea that we are a pilgrim people, and also the desire to join and invite the community into our story and to be a meaningful part of their stories,” de Anaya said. “We chose the pilgrimage theme because that’s who we are and have been from the beginning, when the cornerstone to the church was set. Sometimes I almost think it’s in our DNA.”

The week kicks off with a re-enactment of the Rev. Henry Sansom, who as rector of Christ Episcopal for 38 years, from 1865 to 1903, kept the church going through war, two outbreaks of yellow fever and other challenges. Sansom will be portrayed by Jim Miller, a veteran of the Vicksburg stage and Jackson’s New Stage Theater.

Miller’s portrayal will include not only historical events, but also what Sansom might have thought about changes in the church since the years he served.

Christ Church is the oldest continually-inhabited church and also the oldest public meeting place in the city. Though Episcopal baptisms are recorded in Vicksburg as early as 1829, the cornerstone of Christ Church was placed in 1839 and church history dates from there.

The original rectory next door was destroyed during the Civil War and then rebuilt on the same site in 1873.

Longtime parishioner Mary Leist said Christ Episcopal has a history of anchoring the neighborhood, being a source of children’s activities and other family services.

Leist, who will be 78 in December, was baptized at Christ Church when she was 2 years old and has been in the church since. “When I was younger, it was more like a neighborhood church,” she said. “The children who lived around here always went to Sunday school here.”

As the town began to grow southward, that changed. And, in the 1960s, it became harder in general to get people to come to church at all, Leist said. But Christ Church endured.

“Lately the community has been discussing this ‘old town’ concept, along Main Street and nearby,” Leist said. “This is where it really originated. So many of the older houses like Anchuca and Duff Green and the church and rectory are still here and still serving the community.”

Upkeep and restoration of the church building and rectory are “huge,” de Anaya said, requiring much time and money. The neighborhood and others have always pitched in to help however they could, for which the church family is grateful.

“We wanted to open our doors, invite people in and feed them on a number of levels,” said de Anaya. “We want to tell our stories and let the people have a sense that this is their house — their worship and heritage — and, obviously, God’s house. We’ve engaged the community many times in fundraisers and in our efforts to maintain these buildings, and that inspired us to want to give back — and give back in a meaningful way.”

Some of the neighborhood will be explored on walking and driving tours Nov. 2 and 3. Good Shepherd Community Center is loaning its van for the driving tour, de Anaya said. The “All Souls” walking tour Monday may encounter some of the “souls of the faithfully departed, which is what good Christians call ghosts,” she laughed. “Vicksburg is the most ghost-filled town I have ever seen, just rich with tales of the faithfully departed.”

Another highlight will come Nov. 5, when Terry Winschel, chief historian at the Vicksburg National Military Park, gives a lecture on “the rector’s wartime experience.” “That will be an amazing experience, and will not simply be about the Civil War, either,” de Anaya said.

Nov. 7 will renew the pilgrimage theme and focus the week’s observances with a two-part presentation by the Rev. Brad Berglund, “The Art of Pilgrimage: Illuminated Journey.”

Berglund, a former Baptist pastor who has written about worship renewal and currently directs two pilgrimage and spiritual renewal ministries in Centennial, Colo., will speak about what it means to be a pilgrim and how to be on a pilgrim journey.

“It’s a way of looking at the world on a deeper level,” de Anaya said.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com