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Good Samaritan, Ellijay
This parish is a former mission of Saint Anthony's, Blue Ridge. Parish History In the fall of 1982, Father Jorge H. Christancho began celebrating mass in Ellijay, Georgia. On June 13, 1986, Good Samaritan was established as a mission of Saint Antony, Blue Ridge. After meeting for years in various homes, the mission purchased the former Watkins Memorial Methodist Church in 1995. The permanent church was dedicated on February 27, 1996 by Archbishop John F. Donoghue and the parishioners have a devotion to Saint Therese with her relic installed in the altar. Father Randall T. Mattox came to Good Samaritan in 2006 as the sixth priest to serve a community that had grown to 130 registered families. On December 19, 2007 Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory issued a decree elevating Good Samaritan to the status of a parish. The parish started a “Room at the Inn” capital campaign in September of 2010 for the renovation of the church. Father Randy Mattox wrote in the parish blog July 25, 2010: “I love our little church in Ellijay. It is pretty hard not to. It is small and quaint, and was built in the twenties, so it has a lot of old charm. The only problem is that it only holds 120 people, which is really a bit too small. To remedy that, plans have been drawn up to increase the seating capacity to 222 which would be a big improvement! In drawing up the plans, great care was taken to preserve the look and feel of the church as much as possible. The goal was only to increase seating capacity. Here is the architectural rendering of the interior of the church after renovations:
As you can see, it looks pretty familiar! The architect was worried the picture looked too much like the current interior, to which I replied, "That's a GOOD thing!"
Edited by Bridget T. Lerette, Archivist
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