St Mary's Anglican Church in Waipukurau is "back to her beautiful best."
Around 150 people attended a civic service last week to celebrate the grand re-opening of St Mary's, more than four years after it was declared earthquake-prone and closed by the standing committee of the Diocese of Waiapu at Easter in 2014.
The Bishop of Waiapu, Reverend Andrew Hedge, presided over last Wednesday's service — which fittingly fell on St Mary's Day — and told the crowd that the re-opening of the nearly 90-year old, earthquake-strengthened church was an occasion of "great joy".
"We rejoice that we are here once more ... What a long time it has been for this parish. Much longer than I envisioned, actually," he said.
The service was also held to acknowledge the efforts of the church's restoration committee in bringing it up to up to the minimum seismic standard as part of a two-stage project, as well as the success of the finance committee in raising $360,000 — including securing a $110,000 grant from the Heritage arm of the Lotteries Commission — for the work to go ahead.
After the welcome and opening prayer by Rev Hedge, recently-installed vicar of CHB Parish, Rev Joan Edmundson, then oversaw the return of church items which had been held in storage.
A procession of parish members carried up items including the church's altar cross, paschal candle, Bible and church banner which were then blessed and returned to their rightful places.
Rev Edmundson said it was an exciting part of the service, which was to acknowledge the "generosity, energy and dedication of all sorts of people" who had contributed to the church's reopening.
But she reserved special mention for Alan Sutherland, chair of the church's restoration committee.
"I do not know if the title does full justice to his role, however. If glue can be said to be incredibly patient, flexible and even-tempered, I would say Alan has been the glue in this project."
Mr Sutherland then introduced main contractor Lance Jacobs, from Jacobs Construction, who said it was a great honour and privilege to be involved in the restoration of CHB's "most iconic building", before he symbolically handed over the church's new Certificate of Public Use to Rev Hedge.
Mr Sutherland also introduced project manager Harvey Burgess who handed over a photo album of the restoration project, and organ expert Dr Ron Newton, who handed over keys from the church's pipe organ which he had cleaned and reassembled.
After a reading from former St Mary's vicar, Rev Graeme Pilgrim, CHB mayor Alex Walker told the service that St Mary's was one of the many strands that made up the "strong" fabric of CHB, which had woven across her own strand.
She had attended baptisms and weddings at the church, sung as a member of the church choir and played her trumpet inside its walls, she said.
On one occasion she had even managed to pry the fingers of organist Kath Fletcher away from her beloved instrument just long enough to play the pipe organ at a friend's wedding, she said.
The reopening of the church had been made possible by the strength of the parish and the CHB community, she said.
"We will need to be continue to be strong.
"There are other buildings around our community that will be deemed to be earthquake prone.
"But our fabric is strong and we will continue forward," said Ms Walker, who hoped the 89-year-old church would continue to stand "strong, straight and true" for many more years to come.
Fundraising committee chairman Mick Ormond recapped the history of St Mary's as the service drew to an end.
He said the first church at the site was built in 1876 but 50 years later, it was deemed too small and the current church was built and consecrated in September in 1930.
Less than six months later it was "severely tested" when it withstood the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
But the only evidence of damage was a small crack in the bell tower and some items found on the church floor, he said.
"Today the church is even stronger. When stage two is completed sometime after Christmas it will be stronger again."
He said $360,000 had been raised to date, with $20,000 more needed to fully fund stage 2 work on the church tower "but we'll get there." In the meantime, St Mary's was "back to her beautiful best — or even better," he said.