About Us
About The Parish of St John the Evangelist
St John's Roslyn is a parish within the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin in New Zealand. The parish covers the Dunedin suburbs of Roslyn, Belleknowes, Maori Hill, Kaikorai, Wakari, Halfway Bush and Helensburgh, and currently has a roll of about 350 people. The parish was founded in 1877 and the church was built in 1880.
Our parish also provides a Christian ministry to the wider community, which includes the operation of the Leslie Groves Home for the elderly and the Leslie Groves Hospital.
The Church Buildings
St John’s, designed by H.F. Hardy and built by F. Wilkinson, is a simple wooden church on a stone foundation, opened in June 1880. The church is built of stained and polished rimu, kauri, bluegum and oregon. Although it was designed to seat 282 people, its comfortable seating capacity is about 220. The church has a fine pipe organ and several notable stained glass windows. The Parish Hall was built soon after the church; it has been altered and added to over the years. A new building connecting the church to the hall, and containing office space and a meeting room, was completed in 2004.
The main space in the new building is sometimes referred to as the Kataluma; this is a Greek word meaning a large communal room. The upper room of the Last Supper was a kataluma, as was the location usually mistranslated as ‘inn’ in the Christmas narrative.
Read more about St John's history here.
Parish Structure
Like all Anglican parishes, St John’s is governed by a council elected annually at an A.G.M. and called the Vestry. The Vestry meetings are usually chaired by the Vicar. These meetings are open to any parishioner who wants to attend, and minutes and statements of accounts are available from the Parish Office by request.
As a matter of convenience, much of the Vestry’s business is conducted by subcommittees, and any parishioners are welcome to participate in the work of any of the subcommittees if they so wish. Two senior laypeople, known as Wardens, take legal responsibility for the parish. One is elected by the parishioners and the other is appointed by the Vicar.