Our History

The fifteen-acre meadow on which the church stands once served as a place where Native Americans held spiritual gatherings. Later it became a rest stop for cattle drives along the Preston Trail. Eventually, in the latter half of the 19th century, the pioneer village of Frankford carved out a space in the midst of this ancestral convening place. From the beginning, it included a mission and cemetery. The present white clapboard prairie-gothic chapel, dedicated in 1899, was originally a Methodist chapel and later an Episcopal mission and parish, Church of the Holy Communion. Today, this historic site has become a quiet refuge from the restless energies of an encircling city. 

 Church of the Holy Communion (CHC) was founded in April of 1963 as a mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. From 1963 to the present, the parish has grown and expanded while maintaining its historic commitments to biblical and traditional Christianity.

In 1986, after the change of the prayer book was mandated, the parishioners, unhappy with the decree, asked the bishop to release them from the diocese to be free to use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer as an independent congregation. The request was granted and CHC remained independent for the next sixteen years. The historic 1928 Book of Common Prayer is still in use today.

In 1998, the parish completed a new building, the Edman Building, to be used for Christian Education, and it also established the Bent Tree Episcopal School (today called Holy Communion Christian Academy). HCCA is our pre-school with a focus on infants 6 weeks old through kindergarten students. The next important milestone came in September 2001 when the church called The Rt. Rev. Ray Sutton, a Suffragan Bishop in the REC, to be its full-time rector. Consequently, in 2002, the parish began the process of affiliation with the REC and would no longer be independent. The vision of becoming a flagship parish in the REC became their mission statement.

In April 2006, the parish completed and dedicated its new 350-seat brick and stone church building, thanks be to God. The construction of a new parish hall, Lunt Hall, followed soon after and was completed in 2009.  CHC now had a beautiful sanctuary and a new parish hall to accommodate its growing membership.  The vision of CHC becoming a flagship parish must have also been God’s plan as the mission statement became reality a few years later when in 2012, CHC was proclaimed the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Mid-America REC.  The church’s current rector, The Very Rev. Canon Charles Camlin was installed as Rector and Dean in February of 2017. Bishop Sutton became the Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese in February 2018, and on May 8, 2019, CHC was designated as the Cathedral of the Diocese of Mid-America REC.