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- The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic church located at 48 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The current church building was completed in 1873 and is the oldest church in Atlanta, as well as one of the oldest standing buildings in the city. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The church traces its history back to the 1840s, when missionary priests from Augusta and Macon would hold services in the houses of Irish Catholic immigrants who lived in the city. By 1848, the Catholic population in the area had grown enough to warrant its own dedicated building, and a wooden structure was constructed in 1848 and dedicated as the Church of the Immaculate Conception the following year. During the American Civil War, the church's pastor, Thomas O'Reilly, convinced officials in the Union Army to spare the building and several nearby structures from destruction during their occupation of Atlanta. However, the church was severely damaged during the war and as the congregation grew during the Reconstruction era, it became evident that a larger building was needed. In 1869, work commenced on a new brick structure, designed by Atlanta architect William H. Parkins in the Gothic Revival style, which was completed and dedicated in 1873. The church continued to grow through the late 1800s and early 1900s, and several parishes were carved out of the church's parish as the city's population increased. However, due to a change in demographics starting in the early 1900s, the church began to decline in membership, and by the late 1940s, there were discussions on selling the church. However, instead, the bishop of the church's diocese oversaw a restoration that was completed by 1954, when the church was dedicated as a shrine. In 1958, the church was placed under the care of the Franciscans. In 1982, the church suffered from a massive electrical fire that nearly destroyed the entire building, but it was restored by 1984. In 1987, the Franciscans returned management of the church to the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and their appointed priest, John Adamski, made sweeping changes to the church, such as by expanding outreach to the city's LGBT population and to people with AIDS, working with other nearby churches to provide more services to the area's homeless population, and opening the church to the public for guided tours to attract contributions from tourists. By the mid-2000s, the church had an estimated 325 families in its congregation, and roughly a third of its congregants were LGBT. (en)
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