Old St. Joseph's Church is a church in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, and was the first

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church in the city. The church was founded in 1733; the current building was dedicated in 1839.

History

Old St. Joseph's Church was founded by Joseph Greaton (1679–1753), an English

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who came to Philadelphia from Maryland in 1729 to establish a mission. He originally celebrated

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

in his house at 321 Willings Alley. Father Greaton built the first chapel in 1733, almost certainly a house-chapel attached to his residence. The right of Roman Catholics in the

Province of Pennsylvania The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn after receiving a land grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania ("Penn's Woods") refers to W ...

to worship at the "Romish Chapel" was challenged the following year"Old St. Joseph's Catholic Church", VisitPhilly
/ref> by the deputy governor of Pennsylvania. The

Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn after receiving a land grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania ("Penn's Woods") refers to Wi ...

ultimately decided not to ban celebration of mass and cited

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

's Charter of Privileges as controlling, despite the English penal laws. Nowhere else in the English colonies could Catholics enjoy public worship to the extent possible in 18th-century Philadelphia. In 1757, the chapel was replaced by a larger church.

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revoluti ...

and the

Comte de Rochambeau Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, 1 July 1725 – 10 May 1807, was a French nobleman and general whose army played the decisive role in helping the United States defeat the British army at Yorktown in 1781 during the ...

, worshiped at St. Joseph."Old St. Joseph's Church & National Shrine", USHistory.org
/ref> Men from the American and French armies celebrated high mass at St. Joseph's after the victory at Yorktown. In 1793, a

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epidemic swept the central area of Philadelphia, killing a tenth of the population. Old St. Joseph's established an orphanage to care for some of the many children left without families due to the epidemic. Fathers Egan, Carr and Hurley, James Oellers, Cornelius Tiers, Joseph Eck and John F. Hoares were among the most active benefactors of the orphans. At a meeting in 1806 by sanction of father Egan it was resolved to form : The Roman Catholic Society of St Joseph for the Maintenance and Education of Orphans, page 118 The church became racially integrated in the 1790s when slaves fleeing a revolution in

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settled in Philadelphia and some joined the church. St. Mary's Charity School educated these immigrants, ultimately leading to the establishment of St. Peter Claver School in Philadelphia in the 19th century. Nearby St. Mary's Church, built in 1763, was used for grander occasions, and was visited by public dignitaries such as George Washington and John Adams.

Parish

Old St. Joseph's Church remains an active parish of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Philadelphia is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in southeastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. It covers the City and County of Philadelphia as well as ...

, run by the Jesuit fathers, with Daily Mass at 12:05pm Monday through Saturday, and Sunday Masses at 7:30am, 9:30am, and 11:30am.

Architecture

The church structure is uniquely sited and nearly impossible to see from the street. One story relates that

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

advised Father Greaton to protect the church, as religious prejudice was not unknown in the Quaker city. The front wall of the church is a party wall to a neighboring structure and so provides no means of entry. The entrance from Willings Alley remains through a narrow arch with iron gates, which opens to an unassuming courtyard that conceals the nature of the church building. (On two occasions, in 1740 and 1755, Quakers helped defend St. Joseph's original chapel to prevent Protestant mobs from destroying it.) Today the only entrances to the sanctuary are on either side, toward the back of the church, because there are unrelated buildings before and behind the church building on Walnut and Fourth Streets. The present church is the third on the site and was dedicated in 1839. Parishioner John Darragh was the builder-architect. In 1886, major renovations were undertaken by architect John J. Deery. Other renovations by architects Walter Francis Ballinger and Emil George Perrot took place in 1904."Old St. Joseph's Church", Historic Campus Architecture Project, Council of Independent Colleges
/ref>

Filippo Costaggini 300px, Filippo Costaggini Filippo Costaggini (1839–April 15, 1904) was an artist from Rome, Italy, who worked in the United States Capitol. He and Constantino Brumidi both trained at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, and he came to the United ...

's ''"The Angelic Exaltation of St. Joseph into Heaven'' (1886), a circular painting in diameter, is affixed to the ceiling. It depicts St. Joseph surrounded by angels with an infant Jesus on his lap bearing lilies, the flower associated with the saint. Done in the Italian Neoclassical style that dominated Catholic churches in the late 19th century, it has been recognized as historically significant by the Philadelphia Historical Commission. The large painting of the Crucifixion, above the altar, was executed about 1840 by parishioner Sylvano Martinez.

Education

The designated parochial school for Old St. Joseph's Church is St. Mary Interparochial Grade School.

Legacy

Eight Catholic dioceses trace their roots to Jesuit missionaries from Old St. Joseph's.

St. John Neumann John Nepomucene Neumann (german: link=no, Johann Nepomuk Neumann, cs, Jan Nepomucký Neumann; March 28, 1811 – January 5, 1860) was a Catholic Church, Catholic priesthood in the Catholic Church, priest from Bohemia. He immigrated to the Un ...

founded the Beneficial Savings Fund Society at Old St. Joseph's in 1853.

St. Joseph's University Saint Joseph's University (SJU or St. Joe's) is a private Jesuit university in Philadelphia and Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. The university was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1851 as Saint Joseph's College. Saint Joseph's is the seventh olde ...

and St. Joseph's Preparatory School were founded at Old St. Joseph's in 1841 and 1851, respectively.

References

External links

*
Saint Mary Interparochial School
{{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, state=collapsed Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia Roman Catholic churches in Philadelphia 1733 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies Society Hill, Philadelphia Roman Catholic churches completed in 1757 History of Philadelphia Churches completed in 1839 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States