A church almost as old as Lansdale itself has announced it’s shuttering its stained-glass windows.
Leaders of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, at Fourth and Broad Streets, notified the handful of remaining congregants that, after 129 years, the closing services will be on Easter Sunday.
The congregation was founded in the mid-1880s, about 10 years after Lansdale was born. And the current church, dedicated in 1890, is by far the oldest in continuous use by a single congregation in the area.
The property is slated to go up for sale shortly after the Easter holiday.
As recently as the early 2000s, the congregation numbered up to 250 regular attendees, according to Ray Medlin, the church’s Rector’s Warden. But financial missteps and mismanagement, compounded by the lack of a permanent pastor to set tone and direction, led to what Medlin termed a "downward spiral.” An aging and dwindling congregation, currently numbering 25 to 30, sealed its fate.
"There is sadness, of course, but the people have accepted it,” said Medlin. "We just want to gracefully go through our services over Lent here,” he said. "Easter is a good time to move forward.”
The sale of the property–the church, an added wing, the parsonage and church office–throws into question the future of a third historic house of worship within a three-block area in Lansdale.
The first Lansdale United Methodist Church, at Third and Walnut Streets, is slated for demolition to make way for a six-story apartment building. And the original First Baptist Church, just a block away at Third and Broad Streets, is set to return to its religious roots as a Hindu Temple. Moulton Builders, the previous tenants, had tended and restored the structure.
"Loss of the Holy Trinity congregation should be distressing news to the entire Lansdale community,” said Dick Shearer, president of the Lansdale Historical Society. "We hear stories like this all too often. Church membership is generally down across the country and small congregations like Holy Trinity probably feel the pinch the hardest."
"The church itself is very historic, not only because of its age but because its exterior looks almost exactly as it did in 1890 when it was dedicated,” said Shearer. "The building was based on the design of St. Giles parish in England, where members of the Penn family, founders of Pennsylvania, were buried.”
Medlin said that, according to the earliest records, "The church itself was built in six months. They had four to six Italian stonemasons that came in on the train Monday morning and stayed here till Saturday, then took the train back to Philadelphia.”
The congregation itself was thriving well into the 1990s. "Holy Trinity had a couple hundred people attending here, youth group, Bible studies, activities galore,” Medlin said. But a misadventure in opening and supporting an alcohol and drug rehab center at North Wales Road, compounded by financial transactions without proper supervision, said Medlin, proved a financial sinkhole.
The congregation never recovered. Bank accounts went negative. Worshipers wandered away. Despite ups and downs over the next decade, the church found it couldn’t afford a permanent minister.
"We had assigned ministers, we had what was called service ministers on Sundays,” he said, "and we never built the congregation to that point where they had the steady minister, that person that was really here for us.”
Ebbing resources ultimately couldn’t support an ancient structure. "There was so much needed for the building,” he said. "I wrote for and got a couple of grants, but there’s a lot that needs to be done.”
Members of Holy Trinity can often be seen handing out several hundred free lunches on Fridays on the street corner, a volunteer and donor-based ministry that will continue, albeit a little further north, thanks to an alliance with the Korean First Generation Church at Fifth Street.
But otherwise, an era is ending. For longtime members, it’s a painful goodbye.
"It’s very difficult. My great aunt and grandmother are in the diary books that Holy Trinity keeps on a monthly basis,” said Medlin. "My mother was married here.” He was baptized there.
"But I’m OK, because I’m walking away knowing God has a path for all of us in this world. I’m walking away with His path for me,” said Medlin. "I know that I found Jesus and God when I was a kid. … I’m sad, but I’m OK because this church instilled that in me.”
Shearer has a prayer of his own: That the Holy Trinity building be saved.
"It’s my sincere hope that the community will step forward and save the church,” Shearer said. "I have to believe there are people out there with the financial resources and a workable idea that could repurpose Holy Trinity without destroying its character.”
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