2001
The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception occupies the same city block in downtown Atlanta as Central Presbyterian Church. Both remain as the oldest standing churches in the city having survived Sherman’s siege of Atlanta in 1864.
In the early 1980s, the Shrine suffered a devastating fire to the nave and gallery area of the building. In 1982, the M. P. Möller company built a new 3-manual, 56-rank organ for the gallery. Unfortunately, the Möller was plagued with many problems of the period resulting from antiquated relay designs and poor zinc metal in the large facade and bass pipes.
Parkey OrganBuilders assumed regular maintenance of the instrument in 1995. Since then, our firm has completed upgrades to the console capture system and relays, replacement of all of the failing zinc pipes (new pipes constructed in copper but painted). Many of the remaining bass pipes were fitted with new languids and re-voiced.
As well as zinc pipe replacement, the following stops were replaced to correct scaling problems:
The remaining reed stops of the organ were removed for cleaning and regulation in 2001. At that time, a significant amount of re-voicing and regulation was done to correct problems and to complete the tonal finishing from the 1982 installation. Presently, the organ is used extensively for weddings in addition to regular services.