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Sacred Places
Philadelphia’s multi-faith mosaic is no accident, but grew out of civic guarantees of religious liberty planted by William Penn. Consistent with the Quaker belief that each person has the inner light of God within, Penn insisted that here, every person would have the right to worship freely according to his conscience.
Word of this openness drew settlers of many different faiths to Philadelphia in the 18th century, and made it the city of choice for the Constitutional Convention because all delegates would be welcome. By the late 1700’s, within the roughly nine square blocks that today constitute the Old City and Society Hill neighborhoods, there were 30 different congregations, a number of which have remained continuously active ever since.
Today, one can appreciate Philadelphia’s sacred places on different levels – as houses of worship and centers of community, repositories of history, venues for music and art, and examples of diverse architectural styles. Over the last 300 years, Philadelphia has grown from a small country town to a thriving five-county metropolis, with over 100 different neighborhoods, where you can find sacred places representing every faith, culture and nationality.
There are simple meeting houses along commercial streets, intimate chapels tucked into the fabric of neighborhoods, Basilicas and neo-gothic cathedrals along broad avenues, and everything in between.
You can get a good sense of how Penn’s ideals were implemented in the past, and continue to live today, just by walking around Old City and Society Hill. Here you’ll fine a number of still-active historic congregations, side by side, across the street and down the block from one another. Christ Church (1695), on 2nd and Market, is where the Church of England put down roots, around the corner from what would become the Quaker Arch St. Friends Meeting House (1804).
Old First Reformed Church (1727), Jewish Mikveh Israel (1740), Methodist St. George’s (1769), and Catholic St. Augustine’s (1796) are all on 4th Street. A few blocks south is Old St. Joseph’s (1733) the first Catholic Church in Philadelphia, tucked in an alley just south of Walnut between 3rd and 4th, and its offspring, Old St. Mary’s (1763) down the street on 4th.
One block more, and you’ll reach St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (1761) and Old Pine Street Presbyterian (1768) along Pine Street on either side of 4th Street. Just east down Pine, and around the corner on 6th, you’ll find Mother Bethel (1794), the oldest property continuously owned by African Americans.
And it’s worth the walk (or drive) a bit further south down to Christian Street and Columbus Boulevard by the river, where today’s Episcopal Gloria Dei (1677), the oldest church in Pennsylvania, served Swedish settlers in the 1600’s. That all of these different congregations and more worshipped among each other was rare for that time. That so many have continued to this day is living testament to the success of Penn’s Holy Experiment.
As Philadelphia developed from the Delaware to the Schuylkill Rivers and then out into the larger metropolitan area, houses of worship sprung up and adapted to meet the needs of each community. A few examples include South Philly’s St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church in the heart of the Italian Market and Germantown’s Mennonite Church, whose 1683 congregation worshipped in its historic Meeting House from 1708 to the mid-1980’s, when it moved to a church down the street.
Tindley Temple United Methodist Church on South Broad Street played a key role in the development of black gospel music, and Congregation Rodeph Shalom on North Broad Street was the first Ashkenazic synagogue in America. North Philadelphia’s Church of the Advocate, which began in the 1890’s with a white congregation, became famous as a locus of social change within the African American community in the 1960’s.
West Philadelphia’s Calvary Methodist, a racially integrated ‘auditorium church’ shares its space other congregations, and the newly renovated Episcopal Cathedral in multicultural University City, today offers Korean as well as English services. Many places of worship also host musical or theatrical events open to the public.
Visits to sacred sites may include a visit to their cemeteries and/or shrines. In this section we also profile some cemeteries and shrines that welcome visitors independently. Some, like Christ Church Burial Ground, have tours and interpretative literature available.
Old Philadelphia Congregations is a consortium of historic churches and synagogues that meets regularly in recognition of their historical legacy and the continuing importance of interfaith cooperation. Additional information about the early evolution of Philadelphia’s worshipping communities and their connections can be found at www.holyexperiment.org.
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