St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, Roxborough

St. Timothy's Church, Roxborough is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Wissahickon Deanery of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. In 1962, St. Timothy's reported membership of 1,144 and weekly attendance of 849, while its 2021 reported attendance was 27 persons.

St. Timothy's Church
St. Timothy's Episcopal Church
St Timothy's Episcopal Church, Roxborough, April 24, 2022
St. Timothy's Church Show map of Pennsylvania St. Timothy's Church Show map of the United States
40.027742939204245°N 75.2097539391737°W / 40.027742939204245; -75.2097539391737
Location	5720 Ridge Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Country	United States
Denomination	Episcopal
Website	www.sttimsrox.com
History
Founded	1859 (1859)
Dedication	Saint Timothy
Consecrated	February 14, 1863
Architecture
Architect(s)	Emlen T. Littelll
Years built	1862-1863

It was founded in 1859 by lay members of St. Mark's Church, Locust Street with a Tractarian High Church ethos including free pew sittings. The first services were conducted by a priest from St. David's Episcopal Church in Manayunk. Financial difficulties required the adoption of a pew-rental system in 1863. The parish had a historically Anglo-Catholic character, adopting an early weekly celebration of the Holy Communion in 1869, with the main Sunday service becoming Holy Communion in 1909. In 1893 the Anglo-Catholic Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity, affiliated with the Cowley Fathers (Society of St. John the Evangelist) began work in the parish and at the adjacent St. Timothy's Hospital.

The cornerstone for the church building was laid on July 18, 1862 by Bishop Alonzo Potter. The church was consecrated by Bishop William Bacon Stevens on February 14, 1863, as one of his early official episcopal acts. Its architect was Emlen T. Littell, who also built New York's Church of the Incarnation, Zion Episcopal Church, Palmyra, New York, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Poughkeepsie and many other buildings with a parish Gothic style. A vandal attempted to blow up the church in 1899 using its municipal gas-light supply.

The studios of Victorian Anglo-Catholic stained glass artist Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907) designed the majority of the church's windows as memorials to members of the local Merrick and Cope families. The stations of the cross are the work of Thorsten Sigstedt (1884-1963), a Swedish American woodcarver with studios in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. The first burials in the adjacent cemetery, which is active in 2022, began in 1863. A two-manual organ by Frank Roosevelt (Opus 367) was installed in 1887; in 2006 a 1967 Wicks/1997 Buzard organ with three manuals, 32 stops, 36 ranks from First Baptist Church in Decatur, Illinois was installed.