St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church

We are a Eucharistic community rooted in Roman Catholic Traditions and dedicated to witnessing our faith through worship, education, and evangelization. Please visit our website at www.st-teresa.com. St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church honors St. Teresa, a carmelite nun, who was born in Avila, Spain on March 28, 1515. She entered the Carmelites and became a reformer introducing sincerity and discipline into her order. She left behind many convents that she founded as well as five famous books of spirituality that earned her the rare title 'Doctor of the Church.' She was canonized 40 years after her death by Pope Greogory IV in 1622. We celebrate her feast day on the anniversary of her death on October 15th.

Early History
Bishop Gerald Frey established St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church and Parish on September 3, 1968. The first Mass was celebrated on September 29, 1968, in a house located at 3327 Crane Ferry road. In addition to being a place of worship for Catholics residing on the west side of Richmond County and in Martinez, this house also served as the parish office, parish hall, and rectory for the first pastor, Fr. Roy Cox. There were about seventy families in the membership of St. Teresa's at that time.
Parishioners worshiped in the house until December 14, 1969, when the first Mass was celebrated in the T-shaped multipurpose building located on Pleasant Home Road. Bishop Frey dedicated the new worship center in January 1970.
Over the years the parish continued to grow. During this time, Columbia County was part of the Archdiocese of Atlanta; however, Catholics residing in Columbia County were participating in Eucharistic celebrations at St. Teresa. A survey was conducted and the results, which indicated that the spiritual needs of Columbia County's Catholics could be best served by St. Teresa's, where sent to Bishop Raymond Lessard. In 1979, Columbia County officially became a part of the Diocese of Savannah; and this brought the official enrollment of the parish to about 350 families.
In September 1983 (the parish's fifteenth anniversary), eight classrooms were built for the religious education program. On October 11, 1987 Bishop Lessard celebrated Mass and dedicated the new church building, which had a capacity of 750. On December 5, 1993, the parish had a formal celebration of its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. The highlight was a Mass celebrated by Bishop Lessard, followed by the blessing of the new Parish Center/Gym and the new Rectory.

The Journey to a New Home
St. Teresa of Avila Parish has been blessed with much spiritual and physical growth. In the time since the thirtieth anniversary, we have grown from about 600 registered families to almost 1600 families. Many people put forth tireless efforts to locate a suitable site for a new church to be built to better accommodate our parish family; it was determined that St. Teresa of Avila Parish should move west, into Columbia County. In May of 2002, we purchased a 44.47-acre site on Columbia Road. On March 7, 2004, we broke ground for our new parish campus. Bishop Boland dedicated our present facility on September 18, 2005. Our journey was not easy, but the sacrifices of time, talent, and treasure have ultimately rewarded us with a new campus to call "home."
We celebrated our fortieth anniversary here in Columbia County in 2008. We are still growing and continue to serve the Catholic Community of Richmond and Columbia Counties, as we have since 1968.