CHAPEL HILL — The former St. Philip’s Episcopal Church will begin its slow move from the community of Germanton, north of Winston-Salem, next week and is scheduled to arrive at its new home in Chapel Hill early next month.

The 121-year-old chapel, which has not had a congregation since 1980, is being uprooted and moved 126 miles by truck to become the Episcopal Church of the Advocate, a 9-year-old congregation that has never had its own sanctuary.

Blake Moving Co. of Greensboro is scheduled to begin moving the 56-foot-long chapel on Thursday and follow a circuitous, rural route over mostly two-lane roads to Chapel Hill, according to Rev. Lisa Fischbeck of Church of the Advocate. The building will move an average 7 or 8 mph, and with breaks and days off, is scheduled to reach its destination off Homestead Road on Saturday, Dec. 8.

The chapel’s roof and steeple were removed in advance and are making the trip separately.

St. Philip’s was completed in 1891 in the Carpenter Gothic style, and its congregation peaked at about 20 families around the turn of the 20th century. An effort by local residents to keep the building on its historic site in Germanton failed.