Methodist Episcopal Church, South and South and was criticized for holding slaves. The 1844 General Conference voted to suspend Bishop Andrew from exercising his episcopal office until he gave up the slaves. Southern delegates to the conference disputed the authority of a General Conference to discipline bishops. The cultural differences that had divided the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S). The statistics for 1859 showed the MEC,S had as enrolled members some 511,601 whites and 197,000
Christ Episcopal Church (Gardiner, Maine) its third sanctuary, the first having succumbed to fire in 1792, and the congregation having outgrown the second. It was designed by the Rev. Samuel Farmer Jarvis in what was then termed the "Gothick" style, which was then without precedent in New England. Christ Episcopal Church (Gardiner, Maine) Christ Episcopal Church is a historic church located at 1 Dresden Avenue in Gardiner, Maine. Built in 1820 for the oldest congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. It is the oldest known example of ecclesiastical Gothic Revival architecture in New England, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places