CALAIS – Three years ago, many Catholics stood on the side of the road and watched as red flames crept up the side of their church burning it to the ground.

All that was left hours later was scorched wood.

On Monday, many of those same Catholics and more watched as the Rev. Joseph Malone, the Bishop of Portland, dedicated their new church on the same ground where the other had burned.

“We have come home,” said parishioner Leah McLean, who was a member of the church’s building committee. Tears glistened in her eyes as she looked around the new church just moments before the dedication ceremony. “How could you not be joyful?” she asked.

Arlene Barnard, who at 88-years-old is one of the oldest members of the church, also looked around. “Isn’t this just beautiful,” she said.

For McLean, Barnard and the more than 400 parishioners who attended the dedication of the $3.7 million Immaculate Conception Church on Monday, it was an emotional moment.

This is the first time a new church has been dedicated in the Portland Diocese since Holy Trinity Parish in Lisbon was dedicated in December 1999. Joining Bishop Malone on Monday were 15 priests from across the diocese, area Protestants leaders and members of the Jewish faith.

Though she is proud of her new church, McLean will never forget the fire.

It started very early on Saturday morning July 23, 2005.

Huge thunderstorms had pounded the area. Then a bolt of lightning lit up Calais Avenue and shook the ground. The lightning struck the church’s cross and ignited a fire. Another bolt of lightning damaged the St. Croix Masonic Hall less than a block away.

Around 1:30 a.m., orange flames swallowed up the large golden cross atop the church’s cupola. Flames raced across the roof. Multiple sirens from fire departments across the region dragged parishioners from their beds. Many described a “huge furnace of flames coming out of the roof of the church.”

The fire was fast, hot and devastating, claiming the church, the nearby rectory and most of their contents – except for a statue of the Virgin Mary. Afterward, people called the statue’s survival a miracle.

After the fire, the statue, which had been slightly damaged in the fire, was placed in storage. It was later moved to Eastport where it was restored. Edmund Delmonacco, who also was a member of the building committee, said Monday that he and church priest, the Rev. Frank Morin, brought the statue back to Calais last week in the bed of a pickup truck. “I drove only 25 miles per hour coming up here because I was scared that it might slide ahead and damage it,” he said.

Now the Virgin Mary has a place of honor in the vestibule. A stained-glass window from the original church built in 1893 was found and will eventually be positioned behind the Virgin Mary.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” McLean said before the start of Monday’s ceremony.

During the formal dedication of the church, McLean welcomed the bishop.

“In July of 2005, our faith community was rocked to its core by the loss of our beloved church when it was struck by lightning and burnt down,” she told the bishop. “Immaculate Conception’s faith community is a community enriched by our loss. We are a people who understand suffering and through this pain have become more compassionate and caring of each other and appreciative of our brothers and sisters of other Christian faiths.

“This tragedy was our passion and death to what we once were as a community, to our resurrection as a people who are stronger and more committed to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, represented by this beautiful building which we present to you now,” she said.

The bishop then began the dedication with the blessing of the holy water at the entrance to the church and later the anointing of the altar.

During his homily, Malone said he was in Toronto, Canada, when he learned of the fire. A church, the bishop said, was a communion of its parishioners. “Your very first concern on the day of the fire was not when will we rebuild,” he said, indicating that was probably a quickly arrived second thought. “But your first thought was we must gather together to celebrate the Eucharist this Sunday, the next day.”

Shortly after the fire, the nearby First Congregational Church of Christ opened its doors to its displaced neighbors. The Catholics have been holding Mass there ever since – until now.

Immaculate Conception parish was established in 1859 and this is the fourth church that will serve the parish. Construction of the 350-seat church began last summer.

The new church is located on the same site as the old one on the corner of Calais Avenue and Washington Street. The church that burned was built in 1987.

The new church includes a church hall that will hold 140 people, four classrooms near the front and a rectory and offices in the back. The church also has six new stained-glass windows that were found at a former convent in Lewiston.