The Lutheran Legacy from Danish Days
St. Croix is an island of churches, and that does not connote empty old buildings as relics of former days, but active congregations filling houses of worship and carrying their faith into the community through neighborhood initiatives to help the less fortunate. The Lutherans are one such group, and on this island you will find no less than four of their churches, thanks in great part to the fact that the Danes brought their state church with them immediately upon purchasing the island from France in 1733.
The Steeple Building, part of Christiansted National Historic Site, was the island's first Lutheran church. A gravestone inside Christiansted's Lord God of Sabaoth Lutheran Church on King Street tells (in Danish) the story of Pastor Johannes Jacob Stoud, who in 1749 volunteered to serve the church as its first pastor in this distant location from his Norwegian homeland, an indication that it took courage and sacrifice to come to this dangerous, remote area. In fact, his ministry took place at nearby Fort Christiansvaern, as the Steeple Building was not completed until 1753.
Lord God of Sabaoth church dates back to the 1730's when it was built as a Dutch Reformed Church, but the Lutherans moved here from the Steeple Building in 1830. Frederiksted's Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, built in 1792, used to be known as "the Dane Church" for its large Danish congregation. The Kingshill Lutheran Church was built in 1912 - just five years before the sale of the Danish West Indies - primarily to accommodate the gendarme contingent stationed at the Kingshill barracks. Our most recently built Lutheran Church is Christus Victor in La Vallee on the north shore near Cane Bay; it was built long after Danish times, but attests to the continued spiritual legacy from the European influence.
That legacy is seen in church-sponsored institutions, under the umbrella of Lutheran Social Services, a highly respected community undertaking with its home base now in the US, but maintaining ties here with Denmark. Their best known local institution is Queen Louise Home for Children, founded in 1904 at the initiative of Crown Princess Louise of Denmark to combat early childhood mortality, offering training by Danish deaconesses in child care and nurse's training for local young women, a program that continued for many years. Today, the home, located in Estate Concordia outside Frederiksted, looks after neglected and abused children from infancy to age 12.
Lutheran Social Services, with headquarters on Hospital Street in Frederiksted, initiated the construction of and administers attractive housing nearby for physically disabled, emotionally and mentally challenged individuals in our community, as well as housing for the elderly in mid-island.
