BATON ROUGE — More than two years after a fire destroyed St. Luke's Episcopal Church and Pope Hall, a cross saved from the house of worship was placed atop the steeple of the parish's new church.

The cross once stood atop St. Luke's before the church burned down on Feb. 17, 2024. On Wednesday, nearly two-and-a-half years later, the cross was placed atop the new church.

Parishioners and community members gathered to watch the cross be placed atop the church, which church officials said will represent a "meaningful sign of hope, faith and renewal."

Sharon Edmon says she’s attended services there for more than fifty years, and says her daughter was married there, and Edmon mourned and buried her late husband there.

"I've been here for 54 years and when I watched this place burn, it just ripped my heart out," she said.

The new complex on Goodwood Boulevard includes a new church building, a redesigned Pope Hall and campus-wide improvements.

"This is an extraordinary moment in the life of St. Luke's," Fr. Bryan Owen, rector of St. Luke's Church, said. "After experiencing such tremendous loss, to see the cross lifted into place is a powerful reminder that our faith has carried us forward and that a new chapter in the life of this parish is taking shape."

Church officials say they expect construction to be completed by the end of December, but it's unclear when the first service in the new church will be held.