Old Zion Faith
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This month at Old Zion
Old Zion Home

You will have to dig deep to find our roots. The beginnings of Old Zion are in the German immigration to the (Colonial) East Coast from about 1690. As Philadelphia began to grow, so did the congregation.

The Swedish Lutheran pastors of the former New Sweden (Nya Sverige) colony ministered to the German Lutherans, as it turned out to be very difficult to find a German pastor able to serve the congregation for any greater length of time. Thus the still existing Swedish Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') church, built in 1699-1700, served as "our" first church.

A dramatic change occurred in 1742, when at long last there was found a German pastor willing to serve us on a more permanent basis. He was Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, from Einbeck (near Hannover), but sent out from Halle/Saale, at that time a center for Lutheran outreach and missionary activity. Pastor Mühlenberg turned out to be the right man in the right place at the right time. Under his energetic and capable leadership the congregation flourished.

Two churches, St. Michael (1743), and Zion (1766), and a school-house (1761, still existing) were built. The churches gave name to the congregation, "St. Michael-and-Zion", but in the course of time it popularly became known as "Old Zion". This has been our official name since 1984. From the early 1800s on daughter congregations were established throughout Philadelphia, reflecting the growth of the City, and of course also the gradual change from German to English as the language of worship.

"Mother" Old Zion, however, did and does retain German as one of its official service languages, which in a pre-Revolutionary church is unique in American Lutheranism. Not even the two World Wars were able to muzzle our preachers. We try not to be a museum of the past but rather be a live and living link to those that came to these shores to confess and practice their Lutheran faith. It is this faith that we hope to carry forward into the future. We are now worshiping in a beautiful Sanctuary built in 1891/92 — our fifth church, but the same joyful Gospel !