In 1859, The Reverend John H. Normant, Deacon, was reported to have been holding services in Athens for one member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, William Burns. During the same year, Bishop James Hervey Otey, first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee and owner of enslaved persons, visited Athens and assisted Normant in a series of services which included the confirmation of five persons and the baptism of one infant.

St. Paul’s was formally admitted into the Diocese of Tennessee as a mission congregation in 1860 and led by The Reverand Lucious N. Voight. Beginning with eight communicants, the church began holding regular services in a small schoolroom and later in the Masonic Hall in the upper room of the courthouse. Father Voight reported that attendance was good and that “the flock increased until the winter of 1863, when the rebellion so affected the county as to break up all the churches.” Troops occupied the building and destroyed all furniture and fixtures.

On June 6, 1866, a deed to a lot on South Jackson Street in Athens was registered to “the vestry of St. Paul’s Church, and their successors.” In 1867, a church building was erected.

Unfortunately, information concerning the church is practically non-existent for a period of about 40 years. Apparently the building was not used between the years 1890 and 1909 and fell into disrepair. The church register was burned in a fire which destroyed the home of Miss Catherine Douglas Keith in 1900.

St. Paul’s comes back on the radar in 1908, when the church building was transformed by replastering and electric lighting. Red hangings and Eucharist candlesticks were presented by friends in St. John’s Church, Knoxville. Until 1950, pastoral care of the mission of St. Paul’s remained under the direction of visiting clergy, principally those assigned as rector of St. Luke’s, Cleveland.

Over the intervening generations, St. Paul’s has been served by many faithful priests and grown to be a vibrant, multigenerational community of love and service.