
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 8, 1993                   TAG: 9308060169
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: New River Valley bureau
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                LENGTH: Medium

HOMECOMING AUG. 15 AT ST. JOHN LUTHERAN

An annual homecoming service at the old St. John Lutheran Church in Wytheville will be held at 11 a.m. Aug. 15 on the church grounds along U.S. 21-52 in northern Wytheville.

This historical church spawned a number of other Wythe County congregations including Lebanon Lutheran Church in 1851, Holy Trinity in 1876, St. Luke in 1888, St. Mark in 1891, Poplar Grove in 1897 and Holy Advent in 1915.

Eleven pastors, including three who became college presidents, came from the St. John congregation.

Speaker for this year's service will be Frank K. Efird, who served as pastor at Holy Trinity in Wytheville from 1942 to 1946.

Now retired in Salisbury, N.C., Efird is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne College and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. He has served parishes in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Ohio as well as in Wytheville and Roanoke.

A picnic on the church grounds will follow the service.

Those attending the event will have a chance to tour the George Daniel Flohr log house on the church grounds. Flohr was based at St. John from 1799 until his death in 1826 but traveled on horseback to preach at churches from Prices Fork in Montgomery County to as far away as Lewisburg, W.Va.

His log house, which was located a mile west of St. John, has been moved to the church grounds and restored.

Flohr, who preached in his native German language, has been the subject of recent historical research. Robert Selig, a history professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich., said he has confirmed that Father Flohr and a German foot soldier who fought the British in the Revolutionary War, and wrote about it in a 250-page journal, were the same man.

The main evidence, Selig has said, is the handwriting of the pastor and the soldier and accounts that both studied medicine under an uncle in Paris in the 1790s.

Flohr's grave is in the St. John church cemetery.

In 1924, St. John merged with Holy Trinity. The merger included an agreement ensuring the upkeep of the St. John property and providing for the annual St. John's Day service.

Historical articles, documents and paintings will be on display.

by CNB