Saint Clement's Church is an historic Anglo-Catholic parish in Logan Square, Center City,

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. It is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The church, designed by architect John Notman, was built in 1856. It originally incorporated a spire more than tall; this was found to be too heavy for the foundation and was removed in 1869. In 1929, the church building, which includes the parish house and rectory, and weighs , was lifted onto steel rollers and moved west to allow for the widening of 20th Street. On November 20, 1970, Saint Clement's Church was listed on the

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History

On September 13, 1855, a charter was granted to "The Rector, Churchwardens, and Vestrymen of St. Clement's Church in the City of Philadelphia". The first rector was the Rev. Henry S. Spackman, who was elected as soon as the first charter was received. His incumbency began officially on January 1, 1856. The cornerstone of the church building was laid on May 12, 1856, by the Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, third Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. The land on which St. Clement's was built was furnished by William S. Wilson, a Presbyterian and an Englishman, who with his two brothers came to this country and made a fortune as a manufacturer. He owned most of the land in the section of the city where St. Clement's now stands, and his interest was directed to the development of a residential area by building row houses on Arch, Race and Twentieth Streets. He was eager that a church should be built, not so much because of any religious devotion on his part, but because he felt the erection of a church would greatly enhance the attractiveness of his residential projects. St. Clement's was the third Episcopal church to be designed by architect John Notman and built in Philadelphia between 1847 and 1859. He also designed St. Mark's Church on Locust Street, the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square and, with Napoleon Le Brun, was associate architect for the Roman Catholic Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul on Logan Square. In accordance with the architectural wisdom of the time, Notman maintained that the Gothic Revival style was best suited towards the liturgical worship of High Church congregations, while Romanesque Revival architecture was better suited for the conventional Low Church worship of mainstream Episcopal congregations. Unlike St Mark's, which was erected for a High Church congregation and built in the Gothic Revival style, St. Clement's was originally designed for a typical Low Church Episcopal congregation, and like the Church of the Holy Trinity, was designed in the Romanesque Revival style. Like its two nearby sisters, St. Clement's was built entirely of brownstone. Its bell tower was originally topped by an impressive spire of over in height. The weight of the spire was more than the foundation could support, and it was removed from the structure in 1869 in order to prevent damaging the foundation. When the cornerstone was laid St. Clement's was almost in the fields. The block between Arch and Race Streets had been, from about 1808 into the 1830s, the site of Sans Souci Garden, the largest for-profit botanical haven within the current-day confines of Center City. It had boasted a fine hotel at which visitors were furnished with fruit from the garden greenhouses as part of their refreshments. The garden was respected for its botanical collection; a portion of William Hamilton's private collection—developed at the Woodlands in West Philadelphia—wound up there. The resort was also immediately south of the Magdalene Asylum (a private charitable organization for the redemption of prostitutes) and the Pennsylvania Asylum for the Blind—illustrating how such institutions were established outside of the populated sectors of the city. In the mid-1850s, few houses yet existed nearby and large tracts of open lots surrounded the ground that had been secured for the church. The grid of streets had hardly expanded westward as far as 20th Street and there was no City Hall in the Center Square. The Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal was located at 11th and Market Streets, and there was a covered wooden bridge over the Schuylkill River. The building of St. Clement's Church lasted three years because of recurring financial difficulties. Contemporary evidence indicates that at one time all work was stopped and the building stood roofless for a long period. It was finally opened for services on the first Sunday in January 1859. There is no record of any services for the congregation before the opening of the new building. The Church was consecrated on April 12, 1864. Bishop Potter again officiated and was assisted by Bishop Stevens, Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese, and by Bishop Lee of Delaware. It was not until the arrival of Hermon Griswold Batterson in 1869 that the parish increasingly came to be influenced by the theology of the

Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement was a theological movement of high-church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the Un ...

. During Batterson's time as rector, the parish adopted many of the liturgical practices associated with the Catholic Revival then taking place within the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

.''Extracts from the Minutes of the Vestry of S. Clement's Church in the City of Philadelphia: Made in accordance with a resolution passed February 23, 1871''. Philadelphia: King & Baird, 1871. ''Project Canterbury''. Web.
Accessed 15 Jan 2013. These changes, which included liturgical practices such as the wearing of colored

chasuble The chasuble () is the outermost liturgical vestment worn by clergy for the celebration of the Eucharist in Western-tradition Christian churches that use full vestments, primarily in Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. In the Eastern ...

s and stoles, placing lit candles on the

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

during

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

, and genuflecting before the

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, together with new theological emphases, including the encouragement of private auricular

confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of people – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that ...

and

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and encouraging

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, were not uncontroversial. As conflict over Batterson's changes escalated, the parish became divided between two factions. The anti-Catholic low church faction was led by several vestrymen who had the public support of the diocesan bishop, William Bacon Stevens. The Anglo-Catholic faction rallied in support of Batterson as the anti-Catholic faction tried to remove him from office as rector.''St. Clement's Church Case: A Complete Account of the Proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas for the County of Philadelphia in Equity before the Honorable James R. Ludlow, one of the judges of said Court, to restrain the Vestry of St. Clement's Church from dismissing the Rector and Assistant Minister without a Trial, and against the Protest of the Congregation of said Church together with an Appendix Containing Statements of Similar Cases in New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts and Maryland.'' Philadelphia: Bourquin and Welsh, 1871. Reprinted in ''The Making of Modern Law: 1800–1916''. Anthology. New York: Gale, 2012. Despite having the support of the ordinary as well as that of the vast majority of the people and clergy of the diocese, the anti-Catholic faction was unable to use the judicial processes prescribed in the canons to remove Batterson from office as rector, and eventually the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

, with the support of Bishop Stevens, voted to remove Batterson (and his curate) from office without the requisite canonical trial. The manner in which Batterson was dismissed, circumventing the proper procedures after forcing the parish to endure more than a year of internal conflict, caused the anti-Catholic faction to lose significant support among parishioners. As a result, control of the vestry shifted after the annual election of vestrymen when a number of Anglo-Catholic candidates defeated the incumbent anti-Catholic vestrymen. Later in the year, the vestry went on to elect Theodore M. Riley, an Anglo-Catholic, as the fourth rector of St. Clement's Church. The catholicization of the parish continued during the tenure of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE), more commonly known as the Cowley Fathers, who were responsible for the parish from 1876 to 1891. Some maintain that the work of the Fathers and the entire St. Clement's community among the poor and needy in Philadelphia may have influenced the diocesan authorities to moderate their criticism of the "high church" parish. Father Charles Neale Field, one of the assistant priests sent to St. Clement's from Cowley in 1882, established the Guild of the Iron Cross for Working Men and Boys during this time, eventually drawing thousands of working men from all over the United States into its membership. His intent was to create a "crusade against Blasphemy, Impurity and Intemperance among working men themselves" and posed the question "Are we by our lives and teachings preaching the gospel to the poor?" The guild was a recreational as well as a religious association. The jovial cleric from Yorkshire established the Iron Cross Parlor and Gymnasium in 1889, and he often took large groups of boys and men for outings at various parks and places out in the country. St. Clement's was located near the great Baldwin Locomotive Works on Spring Garden Street and other nearby factories and workshops, so its congregation was surely made up of many working families whose fathers and sons were members of the Iron Cross Guild. It has also been widely said that St. Clement's was one of the first Episcopal parishes in the city to be integrated. While direct evidence is scanty, unlike its neighboring parishes of St. Mark's and Holy Trinity and numerous other Philadelphia churches, St. Clement's never established a separate "mission church" for African-Americans. Also, Field had come to St. Clement's and established his outreach to the workers of the city having already become known for his ministry to people of color, so the church already had a long tradition of tolerance and inclusion. Meanwhile, one long cherished wish of Father Basil Maturin, rector from 1881 to 1889, and his assistant priests, was for the establishment of a hospital for adults. Beginning the work by opening a dispensary in a nearby house in 1885, the plan was to have evening hours so that the working people could benefit. The only requirement for treatment was to be poor and sick. By 1890, the hospital facility had moved to Cherry Street and expanded its services beyond the capacity of the parish to sustain them financially. After a brief period of retrenchment and use of the hospital exclusively to treat epileptics, in 1899 the building was sold to the Community of The All Saints Sisters of the Poor, to be used as a mission house. The Cowley Fathers had withdrawn from St. Clement's in 1891 to focus their American work and ministry in Boston and, in 1895, the Rev. George Herbert Moffett became rector. His coming ushered in a new era of prosperity for the church. He built the present clergy house; began perpetual reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the crypt chapel; was the first to use the term "Mass" officially in the parish; put the first side altar in the church, and moved the baptistry from the head of the south aisle to the rear of the north aisle. Moffett served until his death in 1904. In 1895, Saint Clement's became the first parish in the Diocese of Pennsylvania to institute perpetual reservation of the

. The latter part of the 20th century saw a significant change in the church congregation as the nearby factories and other industrial and commercial establishments closed, families moved to the suburbs or farther away and the parish neighborhood changed profoundly. St. Clement's evolved from a parish church to a shrine church, its outreach and membership becoming more regional and its pews filled on great feast days with worshippers often traveling great distances to partake of the traditional Masses that have continued. Today, as its parish neighborhood is revitalized and new, young singles, students and families settle nearby, St. Clement's continues as an inclusive community rooted in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. The church still emphasizes the Episcopal Church's continuity with Catholicism prior to the

English Reformation The English Reformation began in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away first from the authority of the pope and bishops Oath_of_Supremacy, over the King and then from some doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church ...

. St. Clement's therefore offers lavish worship and music with full Catholic ceremonial, including incense, bells, processions, chanting, and a professional choir. Mass is celebrated daily using the English Missal and the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...

, enhanced on Sundays and major feasts with classical music.

Architecture

The location and orientation of the site on which St. Clement's was built posed a significant problem for the design of the church. The west end of the site, where the main

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

and doors would typically be located, was in the middle of a city block. For Notman, the easy solution would have been to reverse the church, erecting the main entrance on the east side of the lot and the

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

on the west side. However, this would have altered the eastward orientation of the building. Instead, Notman retained the apse on the east side of the church and incorporated it into the main façade. The main façade is dominated by the bell tower and the assertive semi-circular apse, which features a blind arcade of simple columns and Romanesque arches. The blind arcade is broken at both ends by large stained glass windows. Just north of the apse exists the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

, which was originally topped by an impressive

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

of over 200 feet in height. The weight of the spire was more than the foundation could support, and it was removed from the structure in 1869 in order to prevent damaging the foundation. The nave of the church is of rectangular floor plan and possesses impressive height. The windows are contained within arched bays in the Romanesque style.

Buttresses A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act a ...

, topped by gablets with decorative carved reverse Ogee arches, separate each bay. Both the roof of the nave and of the apse are of grey slate. Along the ridge of the nave roof at both the east and west ends exist cupolas of carved brownstone, each surmounted by a carved stone cross. In the early 20th century, the roof of the apse was raised some with the installation of a

clerestory A clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey; from Old French ''cler estor'') is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye-level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, a ''clerestory' ...

. This renovation was necessary in order to accommodate the installation of the

triptych A triptych ( ) is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all m ...

that currently stands above the

high altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

. While the clerestory windows mirror the Romanesque arches of the blind arcade, the elaborate exterior stonework above the clerestory windows incorporates forms found in both Gothic and Romanesque styles. Also completed about this time was the complete rebuilding of the roof and roof trusses of the nave, the original having been proved to be significantly deteriorated and unsafe. In 1929 the

City of Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

undertook a project to widen North 20th Street by some . St. Clement's Church was in the middle of the proposed expansion. Facing the prospect of having to demolish the church, the vestry undertook a project to move it. The two houses to the immediate west of the church (at 2028 and 2030 Cherry St.) were acquired and demolished, and the structure was raised onto steel beams, moved to the west, and placed onto a newly built foundation. The move itself took place between July 11 and July 16, 1929. The interior of the church is dominated by the large carved oak

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a Church (building), church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular a ...

and

, installed in 1908, which stand above the

. The central panel of the triptych depicts Christ on the cross, clothed in the

vestment Vestments are Liturgy, liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christianity, Christian religion, especially by Eastern Christianity, Eastern Churches, Catholic Church, Catholics (of all rites), Lutherans, and Anglicans. ...

s of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, with the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

and Saint John the Apostle at the foot of the cross. South of the sanctuary is the

Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chape ...

, which features an altar and reredos of English red stone. The central niche of the reredos contains a statue of the

Virgin Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof ...

and Child while the two side niches contain statues of

Saint Joseph According to the canonical Gospels, Joseph (; ) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern O ...

and Saint Elizabeth with Saint John the Baptist. Located in the nave, the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency climbs to a height of some and features a statue of the Blessed Virgin depicted as Queen of Heaven replete with crown and sceptre. The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

also contains shrines dedicated to the church's major patron, Pope Clement I,

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

from 88-97 AD, and to the church's minor patron,

Saint Catherine of Alexandria Catherine of Alexandria, also spelled Katherine, was, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess a ...

. The church's four manual, 51 rank

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

is Austin Organ Company Opus 507, which was originally installed in 1914. File:St. Clement’s Protestant Episcopal Church, southwest corner of 20th and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia. ca. 1870. (6881592245).jpg, St. Clement's Church circa 1870, after removal of the spire File:Saint clement's church philadelphia exterior apse.jpg, St. Clement's in 2008. Note increased height of the apse. File:St. Clement's T-Square Club Catalogue 1909 p.107.jpg, The height of the chancel apse was increased in 1909. File:St. Clement's T-Square Club Catalogue 1915 p.52.jpg, Choir and Lady Chapel File:St. Clement's T-Square Club Catalogue 1915 p.50.jpg, Altar in Lady Chapel File:StClementsInterior.jpg, Interior view, showing the altar, in 2022

Liturgy

Saint Clement's uses the '' English Missal'', an English-language translation of the

Tridentine Mass The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite or ''usus antiquior'' (), Vetus Ordo or the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) or the Traditional Rite, is the liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church codified in ...

as it existed prior to the 1955

liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII The liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII took place mostly between 1947 and 1958. Groundwork On 20 November 1947, Pius XII issued the encyclical '' Mediator Dei''. It included the statement: "the use of the mother tongue in connection with sever ...

. Today, Low Mass is offered every day, using a liturgy based on the '' Anglican Missal'' and 1928 ''Book of Common Prayer''. A High Mass or Sung Mass is celebrated every Sunday of the year and on most major feasts. From Monday through Saturday, Evening Prayer is recited according to the 1928 prayer book, followed by the novena prayers at the Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency.

Rectors

* Henry S. Spackman, 1856–1863 * Treadwell Walden, 1863–1868 * Hermon Griswold Batterson, 1869–1872 * Theodore M. Riley, 1872–1875 * Oliver Sherman Prescott SSJE, 1876–1881 *

Basil W. Maturin Basil William Maturin (15 February 1847 – 7 May 1915) was an Irish-born Anglican priest, preacher and writer who later became Catholic. He died on board the RMS Lusitania, RMS ''Lusitania'', during the First World War. Life He was born in Ire ...

SSJE, 1881–1889 * Duncan Convers SSJE, 1889–1891 * John Metcalf Davenport, 1891–1893 * Alfred Bowyer Sharpe, 1893–1895 * George Herbert Moffett, March 1895 – November, 1904 * Charles S. Hutchinson, 1905–1920 * Franklin Joiner, 1920–1955 * William Elwell, 1955–1964 * Edward Oscar Hendricks, 1965–1978 * Francis C. FitzHugh, SSC, 1979–1984 * Peter Laister, 1986–1993 * Barry E. B. Swain SSC 1993–2001 * W. Gordon Reid, 2004–2014 * Richard Alton, 2014–2024

References

External links