Renovations are underway
The past two months have seen lots of work happening at the Tryon church, both inside and out! Some projects are happening behind the scenes, like structural repairs in the crawl spaces, while others are slowly transforming the Baptist sanctuary into an Orthodox nave.
Blessing the building on September 6, 2025
On September 6th, a group of faithful gathered to pray a Moleben of Thanksgiving and bless the building before demolition work began. The next week, the contractors began the process of removing the back walls, baptistery, audio booth, and popcorn ceiling. For now, the ceiling will be painted blue. We hope to add iconography there someday.
Demolition, September of 2025
Throughout September and October, crews have been working on extensive drywall repair, new subfloors, and installing hardwood flooring. They also removed the stained glass window.
Removing the stained glss window
Once the window was gone, there much less natural light by the eastern wall. Knowing that the iconostasis will also block the light coming from the windows along both sides of the building, we decided to add two solar tubes to the ceiling, over the back wall. These will let sunlight into the altar area.
Solar tubes
We kept the existing stage for the altar but added a radius to the center to create an ambo.
Building the ambo
We didn’t originally plan to replace the subfloor, but once the carpet was gone, we learned that the old subfloor was an unsuitable base for hardwoods. The contractors installed AdvanTech throughout the nave and narthex, and then began to lay the hardwoods.
Subfloor and hardwoods
The beautiful new floor is ready to be stained and sealed.
Hardwoods in the nave
Still to come: painting, as well as staining and sealing the hardwoods. Once that’s done, our master carpenter Jim Newman and his team of helpers will be ready to install the iconostasis. They’ve been working downstairs, in the fellowship hall, to prepare as many components as they can. We also anticipate an expansion of the parking lot to happen soon, followed by repairs to the existing parking.
Assuming everything continues to stay on schedule, we’re hopeful that we’ll be ready to move in December.