We are a church with open minds and full hearts.
Holy Innocents is a place to gather, pray, celebrate, mourn, talk, laugh, reflect, learn, teach, and share our faith in God. Whether this is your first experience with a church or you are a longtime member, we strive to be a community that follows Christ in loving one another. We orient all we do in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a place where we discover that we are all beloved children of God. With our hearts full of God’s love, we work to listen, learn, and grow with one another. We are not a community concerned with having all the answers. We are comfortable with the mystery of the Holy Spirit, alive and active in the world. We seek to hear God’s call in our lives and the world. We are a church with open minds and full hearts.
Our History
In 1872 the Rev. W.B. Elliott designated St. Philip’s Episcopal Church’s Easter offering to found a mission Sunday school for “the poor of the northern suburb.” With the help of a gift of land by Richard Peters and building funds by Mrs. George Walker, the little Mission of Holy Innocents had its beginning. The driving force for this community was the daughter of Richard Peters, Mary Ellen “Nellie” Peters Black. Over the next 70 years, the church called many buildings home, finally settling in a chapel in Midtown. In 1954, the mission closed its doors; it stood directly in the path of a new expressway. On All Saints Sunday of that same year, Holy Innocents began her current mission in the newly burgeoning suburb of Sandy Springs.
In 1959, the church began a preschool and kindergarten program, drawing on the long history of education advocated by Miss Nellie. Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School has grown into the largest parish-based Episcopal School in America. The church and school share the same campus and work together on many programs. Holy Innocents has continued its tradition of outreach to the local and world community: it founded a very successful English for Successful Living program, helped fund churches in Haiti, helped rebuild the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, sponsored two new parishes in the greater Atlanta community (Church of the Atonement to the southeast and St. Peter and St. Paul to the northwest), built several Habitat homes and has been a prime sponsor of the Sandy Springs Community Action Center.