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Church welcomes Easter at daybreak
By AMY WIMMER © St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001 ST. PETE BEACH -- The Easter Sunrise Service began in 1941 at the tip of the island, or what was left of the tip after a hurricane less than a decade earlier had washed away Pass-a-Grille's two southernmost blocks. Today, a procession of vehicles will make its way across the Pinellas Bayway from the mainland and down Gulf Boulevard from other beaches. Some Pass-a-Grillians, as they like to call themselves, will enjoy the early morning and walk. Others will sail to Pass-a-Grille and worship from Boca Ciega Bay. This year, Pass-a-Grille Beach Community Church anticipates 1,200 people at the sunrise service, believed to be the longest continuous worship of its kind on the gulf beaches. "It's an unusual place because you've got the birds flying over, making a racket," said the Rev. G. Scott Comrie, the pastor. "It's an amazing creation. It's a wonderful gathering." The sunrise service begins at 6:30 a.m. along the east side of the island, near First Avenue and Pass-a-Grille Way, where the rising sun splashes onto Boca Ciega Bay. Chairs are assembled in the street and face the seawall. The St. Pete Beach police direct traffic around the worshipers. Two traditional services are scheduled at 9:15 and 11 a.m. at the 16th Avenue church. Things were less complicated in 1917, when the church held its first recorded Easter service. The only way to reach Pass-a-Grille then was by steamboat. According to church historian Barbara Baker Smith, 136 people attended Pass-a-Grille's first communion. The island, then as now, was a tourism draw: Those people represented 21 states, records show. The first sunrise service was nearly a quarter-century later, in 1941, months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that lured the United States into World War II. Elizabeth Watson, a Pass-a-Grille resident and the wife of Thomas Watson, the famous Watson who helped Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone, helped organize the first service. At the time, Pass-a-Grille was its own city. It had not yet joined three other cities in forming St. Petersburg Beach, now St. Pete Beach. Pass-a-Grille Mayor Jack Deacon and his staff helped create the 15-foot floral cross, made of oleanders and other local flowers, that has become a mainstay of the sunrise service. By Easter 1943, the 252nd Coast Artillery Battery occupied the island's tip. Military barracks had been constructed to house the men, and barbed wire cordoned off the point of Pass-a-Grille. The church moved its service to Second Avenue. An Army truck carried the piano, an Army bugler called the people to worship, and a group of soldiers sang The Old Rugged Cross. The service never returned to the end of the island. On Saturday, members of the church's Dioconate, a worship committee, were to decorate the cross as they do the day before Easter each year. The cross is attached to the eastern seawall. Comrie said he enjoys the fact that the beauty of the sunrise service draws people who otherwise might not celebrate Easter. "I think everyone has to decide where they are in their faith journey, and it's possible some people only come to church on Christmas and Easter, and that's all right," Comrie said. "I'd rather have them come for the big events than for nothing at all."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
