PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Society Hill’s Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of 31 African American churches across the United States to receive a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to help with much-needed restorations.
The $90,000 award will help the church initially repair the deterioration around its 134-year-old stained-glass windows. It is the oldest church property to be continuously owned by African Americans in the U.S., and is also home to the country’s oldest African Methodist Episcopal congregation, founded in 1794.
Rev. Mark Kelly Tyler, senior pastor, hopes the new funding will spur more support for the historic church’s cause.
“This grant is going to help us address some deferred maintenance on the one hand, but we also believe it’s going to inspire donors and others to jump in and do some of the other work that we’ve been envisioning,” said Tyler.
Tyler called those further construction plans “pretty ambitious.”
“It would be the biggest building plan for Mother Bethel since 1890,” he said of plans that include an addition to the backside of the church that would expand its museum and archives.
Both would allow Mother Bethel to expand its offerings to the surrounding community.
The church building itself was finished in 1890 and designed in 19th-century Romanesque Revival style.
“If you can imagine maintaining anything 134 years,” said Tyler, “there’s a lot of work that goes into it.”