Dear Editor,

THE St. George’s Cathedral in Georgetown is in need of urgent repairs. I passed near that building actually every day and was able to walk around that building a number of times.From my observation, the walls of this magnificent church are falling apart. The gutters are rotten and broken down, the yard is extremely dirty and vagrants and prostitutes sleep in that compound at nights.

I passed early one morning and saw lots of vagrants sleeping on the building steps and platform. They eat, sleep and urine there, yet the Priest or Bishop of that church turns a blind eye to the deplorable state of the building and the environment.

For a place of worship, this Cathedral is extremely dirty and it seems as if the church board and our current administration don’t care if this building falls down tomorrow.

The paint on the walls is peeling off; it tells me clearly that this Cathedral was not cleaned nor painted in years. I saw a scaffold around it, but no painting nor repairs is being done.

It can fall to the ground anytime because the yard is like a semi-lake; when it rains, the water doesn’t run off, it lodges in the yard around that building, thus, it undermines the building’s foundation.

Gradually, the foundation of this building is sinking and the Cathedral can fall at anytime (hope it doesn’t fall with the members) when a service is going on.

The yard of this building needs filling and an urgent, solid casting with steel in it to hold that foundation firmly.There is also need for proper drainage and irrigation.

A fence needs to be erected around that building, a very high fence so vagrants
and prostitutes won’t sleep there and proper security should be there.

This building is a landmark in Guyana and we treat it very badly, not the citizens but the Priest or Bishop who is responsible doesn’t seem to bother that this building poses even a threat to the lives of its members and members of the public who drive around it.

Should that building collapse many innocent people can die and it will cost billions to rebuild it. One of the problems in this country’s administration is, we wait until something is completely destroyed then we try to rebuild it when it could have cost less had it been properly maintained.

I Googled St George’s Cathedral from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and the following information came up:

”St. George’s Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Georgetown, Guyana and is one of the tallest wooden churches in the world, at a height of 43.5 metres (143 ft). It is the seat of the Bishop of Guyana.

St. George’s was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and opened on 24 August 1892. The building was completed in 1899. It is located on Church Street in Georgetown, and has been designated a National Monument.

The history of the Anglican Church in Guyana can be traced as far back as 1781, when the Reverend William Baggs, Chaplain to Sir George Rodney, came to Guyana.”

From that information we learn that the Cathedral was completed in 1899 and that informs me that this building will be 117 years old at the end of this year.

That is a very long time. This building needs general repairs, a new set of painting in different attractive colours, a gated yard and some nice, sweet-smelling flowers in the compound because cleanliness is next to Godliness.

I guess the administrators of this building will ask the government to assist financially to repair this building. I wonder what they do with the church offerings and tithes. Even if government bails them out, this church needs a competent body to maintain that building.

I am calling on the relevant authorities to repair the St. George’s Cathedral urgently. Too many organisations always need government to bail them out financially because of their personal financial incompetence. The Anglican Church is a very huge organisation and it is about time the Cathedral’s Bishop wake from his slumber and get this Cathedral repaired.

Yours truly,
Rev. Gideon Cecil