In Norristown, fates diverge for two historic churches

As the congregation of Ebenezer Methodist Church cheered through a rousing 175th anniversary sermon Sunday, members of an even older church a half-mile away were bowing their heads in prayer for the last time.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Norristown's oldest place of worship, dating to 1812, marked its final service Sunday.

Unlike many Montgomery County towns whose identities are entwined with their founding denominations - Quaker in Lower Merion, Mennonite in Harleysville, Swedenborgian in Bryn Athyn - Norristown's identity is rooted in ethnic and religious diversity.

"There seems to be a church on every corner," said Karen Wolfe, executive director of the county Historical Society. "It's certainly a melting pot of early Norristown."

Ebenezer split from another A.M.E. church, Mount Zion, in 1840 and for the first decade met in members' homes.

Founded by free blacks, Ebenezer was a stop on the Underground Railroad. In 1927, its members caused a stir by inviting the Ku Klux Klan to worship with them. (The Klan came in full regalia, and after the service presented the church with a U.S. flag.)

Expecting a large crowd for its 175th anniversary service - and a guest sermon by the Rev. Al Sharpton - the congregation moved Sunday to Eisenhower Middle School. The auditorium was only half full, but the 200 attendees, the choir, and a dance troupe had the rafters reverberating with energy.

St. John's, an earth-toned English Gothic-style cathedral across from the county courthouse, has long served as the neighborhood food pantry, taking donations and volunteers from churches all over the region.

The soup kitchen on Airy Street, which serves 800 to 1,000 people a week, will remain open, said senior warden Bill Kilgour. This fall, the Diocese of Pennsylvania will decide what to do with the rest of St. John's.

Over the last 10 to 15 years, Norristown's population has grown larger and younger. But in that time, Kilgour said, St. John's "had a lot more funerals than we had baptisms. We just didn't have any young families and children coming up through the ranks."

With membership down to about 30, and the cost of maintaining the large, ornate building rising, Kilgour said, "we didn't want to run to the bare bones and then shut down with nothing."

Two Episcopal churches - descendants of St. John's - remain in Norristown, and an endowment exists to take care of the historic graveyard and building.

Bishop Albert N. Jarman Sr., the longtime pastor of Ebenezer, said St. John's did great work in the community and "was a good friend of ours. In fact, it was that building in which I was consecrated."

But in a town where demographics have shifted dramatically, Jarman said, "they appealed to upper-middle-class. There aren't many of those in Norristown now."

Tiffany Robertson-Brown, 31, a longtime member of Ebenezer, said community outreach has been key to the church's mission and longevity.

"We want to see Norristown flourish," she said. "We are Norristown, and Norristown is us."

When an institution such as St. John's closes, Robertson-Brown said, "it's a wake-up call to the community as a whole to say, 'What do we want for the future? What are we going to do to bring revenue here, to bring people here?' "

Kilgour said he's optimistic that a Norristown renaissance will come.

"There has to be planning and a reason for people to come and live there," he said. "But our future is very bright."