The story begins not with missionaries but with a fleeing royal family. In 1808, Napoleon's armies forced the Portuguese court to relocate across the Atlantic, and in the scramble that followed, Portugal and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of 1810. Buried in its clauses was permission for Anglican chapels on Brazilian soil - a quiet concession with enormous consequences. Services in English began that same year, intended strictly for foreigners. Converting Brazilians was forbidden. The Anglican chaplaincy of Salvador was formally established in 1815, meeting first in private parlors and rented rooms, a congregation without walls of its own.

Before there was a chapel, there was a cemetery. In 1811, Governor Marcos de Noronha e Brito authorized the British community to bury their dead on the Barra slope overlooking the bay. A small chapel rose there - Saint George's Church, sometimes called the British Church - where Anglo-Brazilians and foreigners of other faiths could be laid to rest outside the Catholic system that otherwise governed such things. The cemetery still exists, with a heavenly view of All Saints' Bay and a long roster of Britons, Germans, Dutch, and Americans who died in tropical Brazil far from their birthplaces. But the community wanted more than a burial ground. They wanted a proper place to worship.

After Brazilian independence in 1822, the chaplain Edward Parker purchased land near Campo Grande for a permanent chapel. Construction followed, and in October 1853 the Saint George Society opened its doors. The British called it Christ Church, as they did the Anglican temple in Rio. The building followed Classical lines - dignified columns, clean proportions, nothing that suggested a steeple - because the law required it. Outside, the local government was finishing the landscaping of Campo Grande square, which the British would soon use for their cricket matches. Picture that for a moment. A Brazilian plaza. Englishmen in flannels. The crack of willow on leather under the tropical sun. It was an empire within an empire, politely tolerated.

The Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 changed everything. Brazil became a secular state, and the old restrictions fell away. Anglican services could finally be held in Portuguese. Missionaries could seek converts. The American Episcopal Church moved in, eventually merging with the British chaplaincies to form the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil in the mid-twentieth century. But the chapel at Campo Grande had a different fate. By 1975, real estate speculation around the square had made the land extraordinarily valuable. A construction company approached the Saint George Society with an offer - trade the old site for a new church built in the Pituba neighborhood. The society agreed. The chapel came down that year. In its place rose the Britânia Mansion, a residential tower. A century and a quarter of worship replaced by floors of apartments.

The congregation moved on. In 1976 the Anglican Parish of the Good Shepherd took over from the Saint George Society, and in 2010 the parish relocated its headquarters to Bonfim while keeping the Pituba church. The Saint George Society itself became a nonprofit organization with one remaining responsibility - the upkeep of the British Cemetery on the Barra slope, where the story started. If you look for the Anglican Chapel today, you will not find it. You will find a residential building instead, identifiable mainly by name. But the cemetery survives, a green terrace above All Saints' Bay where the first Anglicans of Salvador still rest, waiting patiently for the church that no longer stands above them.