The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme is celebrating a big birthday: 350 years.

Though the church's original building has been replaced five times over the years, its congregation has flourished. While each new structure was being erected - due to expansion; fire; and a lightening strike - church members never ceased finding a place to worship every Sunday.

In commemoration of the church's history, a talk and a series of concerts will take place throughout 2015 in the newest incarnation of the church, built in 1910.

According to Carolyn Wakeman, the church's archivist, the congregation's first three meetinghouses stood on a hill in Lyme overlooking Long Island Sound.

Wakeman explains that early churches were built simply and quickly so they could be easily replaced as the congregation grew.

"Later, they were built out of sturdier materials and built on a larger scale to accommodate more people," she says.

Expansion initiated construction on the second meetinghouse, but the third one was destroyed by a lightening strike in 1815, and instead of rebuilding on the same property, the church was relocated to its present site.

"When that structure burned down, the congregation decided to move it to another location because the center of the community had shifted to what we now know as the village of Old Lyme," Wakeman says. "It no longer made sense to build a larger, grander, more beautiful meetinghouse on the top of the hill, (and so) a new location was chosen near the town green."

Wakeman says that the population of the community had changed - it had become a more prominent place socially, culturally and economically. Architecture styles had also changed and members of the congregation decided they wanted a more elegant church. Master builder Samuel Belcher from Ellington was hired to design the fourth meetinghouse with its tall graceful steeple and stately columned façade. The new church was completed in 1816.

Wakeman notes that within three years, Belcher not only completed the church, but also built two beautiful homes in Old Lyme that later became the Florence Griswold Museum and the Lyme Academy College of Fine Art.

Fire broke out again in 1907, and the church burned to the ground.

"They were convinced at the time that it was arson and tried for about two years to discover who it was that actually started the fire (bringing two suspected arsonists to trial)," Wakeman says. "The outcome was they never really (could prove who did it), but it wasn't credible that the fire could have started by accident.

"Everyone loved the new church," she adds. "It was painted by the most important landscape painters of the day. It was a great loss to both the community and to the artists," she says.

But there was controversy over how and with what kind of structure to replace the building. In her research Wakeman discovered that the minister at the time thought the church should be rebuilt as a big brick fireproof building; the town was horrified. They had loved the white clapboard structure and launched a letter-writing campaign to reconstruct the church as closely to it as possible.

"There were people with money who wanted to replicate the 1817 church, and so they did," she says. "They found the architect Earnest Green from New York who was extremely talented and spent a lot of time trying to locate the original plans, but couldn't. But between old photographs, paintings, and the collective memory of the community, they put together an almost identical building to the Belcher design. Everyone wanted to help and worked together to provide him with details."

Through all its of trials, the First Congregation Church of Old Lyme as been continuously operating for 350 years.

"People didn't stop going to church because they didn't have a building," Wakeman says. "Early on they met in people's homes, and after the church burned in 1816 they may have (congregated) in the town hall. After the 1907 fire, church services were held in the Baptist Church, also on Lyme Street."

Today, the church is one of the town's most important historic landmarks.

MUSICAL TRIBUTES

The 350th birthday celebration kicks off with two concerts this month.

Performing on Jan. 25 is the children's choir of the New London chapter of The American Guild of Organists, made up of young people from Greater New London churches.

On Feb. 8, Simon Holt will give a solo organ recital titled "Spanning 350 Years of Organ Music."

Holt, a professional organist, is the church's director of music, artistic director of Salt Marsh Opera Company in Stonington, and executive director of United Theater in Westerly.

Holt says it was hard to find American organ music going back 350 years, so he turned his search to what was happening in music at the time in Europe.

"In 1685, J.S. Bach, seen as the father of all organists, was composing choral music every day," Holt says. "So I begin with a piece by Bach, even though it's not quite 350 years old, (titled) 'Prelude and Fugue in E minor.'

"I tried to create a program that spans the musical style as well as features all the composers you'd think of that are really well known," he explains. "I was trying to link the importance of the 350th year in Old Lyme with music from (different) countries."

Holt, an Englishman, also chose pieces by prominent 18th- and 19th-century English composers, including "Imperial March" by Edward Elgar (1857-1934).

"I tried to find the quintessential English organ composer, who English people would think of," he says.

Also on the program is "Toccata in F major," a work by the French composer Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937); "Humoresque L'Organo Primitivo" by Italian organist Pietro Yon (1886-1943); and "Thema met variaties" by Dutch composer Henrik Andriessen (1892-1981).

If he is asked back for an encore, Holt says, he will end the program with "a surprise spoof piece based on a tune everyone will know, by a well-known contemporary composer."

Because the organ is on the upper level of the church where people can't see him playing, a special feature of the concert will be a camera projecting images of Holt's hands and feet while he's performing onto large screens at the front of the church.

Upcoming 350th anniversary events

Jan. 25: The New London Chapter of the American Organ Society presents its Children's Choir Festival; Jesse Glaude, director, Simon Holt, accompanist; 4 p.m.

Feb. 8: Simon Holt: An Organ Recital: "Spanning 350 Years of Organ Music"; free-will donations will benefit the Roberta Bitgood music scholarship of the New London County Chapter, American Guild of Organists; 4 p.m.

May 12: "Historic Ground," a talk by Carolyn Wakeman on the historic landscape of Lyme Street.

Info: Call (860) 434-8686 or visit www.fccol.org

The church is at the intersection of Ferry Road and Lyme Street in Old Lyme.