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Where We Worship: The Episcopal parish of St. Luke and the Epiphany in Center City

Like Hillary Clinton, but minus the Chipotle stop, the Rev. Rodger Broadley has been hitting the road on a listening tour.

Like Hillary Clinton, but minus the Chipotle stop, the Rev. Rodger Broadley has been hitting the road on a listening tour.

In his case, the itinerary covers the Episcopal Church USA's five-county Delaware Valley diocese. As co-chairman of the denomination's Bishop Search Committee, the Center City cleric is riding the church circuit to hold a series of "Holy Conversations" with parishioners that pose this question:

"What gifts and experiences should our new bishop have?"

For instance, should the next diocesan leader be an ace administrator? More of a pastoral type? An evangelist? "Everybody wants a kind bishop," Broadley said, "but we're going to get more granular."

Co-chair R. Muriel Rains, a laywoman from Germantown, is splitting conversation-leader duties with him. They're asking the same questions in an online survey that will launch soon at diopa.org.

When he's not barnstorming around the diocese, Broadley is the rector (the Episcopal term for pastor) at the Church of St. Luke and The Epiphany. The Daily News sat down with him to learn more about the bishop search and his historic parish - the city's first to have gas lights (in 1840) and among the first to host an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (in 1946).

Who we are: The Church of St. Luke and The Epiphany is an Episcopal church within the Diocese of Pennsylvania, which covers Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties.

Broadley describes the congregation as diverse and friendly, if a little on the old side. "It's all kinds of people. We're good to each other," he said.

Where we worship: The church is at 330 S. 13th St. Regularly scheduled services, known as celebrations of the Holy Eucharist, are held at 9 and 11 a.m. on Sundays and 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays.

St. Luke and The Epiphany has about 300 members. About 150 people attend services on any given Sunday, many from Center City. "Seventy percent of us walk to church," Broadley said.

What we're known for: More than anything, the parish, located in the heart of the Gayborhood, is known for its landmark 175-year-old Greek Revival church building and for its fearless compassion during the darkest years of the AIDS crisis.

"One of our claims to fame is we were home base to a lot of sick people in the 1980s," Broadley said. Philadelphia's ActionAIDS got its start in a tidy "incubator space" inside the church complex.

Today, the church's achingly full columbarium (a chapel in which the ashes of the deceased are kept in urns) is a testament to the toll of the AIDS crisis, which at its depth claimed as many as 35 parishioners a year, Broadley said. "That has abated. Thank God."

The St. Luke's Hospitality Center continues to support people with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers with a slate of ministries.

Speaking of "slate": The church website, slatechurch.org, employs a nickname that insiders recognize as the acronym for St. Luke and The Epiphany: SLATE.

The word of dog: In the neighborhood, St. Luke and The Epiphany is also known for its annual St. Francis Day, in October. Broadley invites people and their pets to a regular Sunday service and gives a one-on-one blessing to each pet.

Although it's great fun, Broadley said he needs to steel himself for the chaos. "There's barking and frolicking. And I'm an Episcopalian. We tend to be orderly."

What we believe: Episcopalians believe "that God's love is for all," Broadley said, "and that that love is made real in Jesus."

While Episcopal parishes cover the spectrum from conservative to liberal, all pray from the Book of Common Prayer. "That connects us, more than anything else," Broadley said. "It's really important."

Picking a bishop: After Broadley's search committee winnows the field to a small handful of finalists, the diocese's 140 parishes will vote for their choice - each parish gets one vote - as will each of about 150 clergy members.

Whoever wins a majority of both the congregational and the clerical vote, to be held sometime next spring, will land the job.

God is . . . "The animating spirit of all creation, the lover of all souls," Broadley said. "God is the unifying connector of all creatures . . . We're so aware of the separations and the divisions. God sees the whole."

Words of hope: For Philadelphia's LGBT community, the names recorded in the official parish register tell a compelling story of resilience.

The ledger records births, marriages and deaths, going back to the 1800s. In the years between 1985 and 1995 - before the discovery of antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS - the "burials" pages are a relentless litany of deaths attributed to AIDS.

But today, the ledger tells a happier story that starts on June 17, 2014 - on the "marriages" page. On that day, less than a month after state law made it possible, Harry Zaleznik and John Erickson were wed in the congregation's first legal gay marriage.