English: The Episcopal Diocese of Western New York Ministry Center, 1064 Brighton Road at Fries Road, Tonawanda, New York, April 2022. The home offices of the Episcopal Church's Western New York Diocese - with jurisdiction over 57 congregations in Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans and Wyoming Counties - are located in what was originally St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, whose history stretches back to 1955. That year, the diocese sent for Rev. Roscoe W. Shank, a young minster from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania whom they hired as curate for the Church of the Advent in nearby Kenmore and who was specifically charged with setting up a new Episcopal mission for the rapidly growing suburban subdivision of Brighton. The following year, a temporary structure went up on the site of the present-day church, which was duly superseded by the building seen here: plans for which were approved in November 1958, and which was dedicated in September 1959. A work of local architect A. John Ort, the design was characterized at the time by the local press as "conservatively modern", and it's a fitting enough description: sleek lines, smooth textures, and sparse ornamentation (featureless but for the cross and the variation in exterior cladding) abound. The sanctuary had space for 500 worshippers, with religious education and event space originally in the basement, then moved later to the building's west annex, completed in the late 1960s and seen here at the far left. The conservatism of the architecture matched that of its congregation, which found itself increasingly at odds with the diocese and the national church over the liberal reforms that took place in the latter in the ensuing decades (and particularly the issue of ordaining LGBT+ clergy). These tensions boiled over in 2009, when the congregation voted to break with the diocese and affiliate itself with the North American Anglican Province, a new conservative denomination founded by former Archbishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh that aimed to rival mainline Episcopalianism while retaining membership in the worldwide Anglican communion. The renamed St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church sold the Brighton Road property back to the Episcopal diocese that year and continues in existence today at the former home of Temple Beth El on Eggert Road.