Church of the Advocate

The Church of the Advocate is a miniature Gothic cathedral, cross-shaped in plan, with a stone vaulted ceiling supported by flying buttresses, capitals carved with figures, and windows filled with stained glass. Built in 1887-1897 to serve the rapidly growing population of industrial North Philadelphia, the church has served continuously as a provider of social services, and it was a center of civil rights activism in the 1960s and 1970s under the leadership of Rev. Paul Washington (1921-2002).

The building was created by the greatest single act of religious philanthropy in the history of Philadelphia. Upon the death of George South (1799-1884), a prominent businessman and civic leader, his widow Rachel and daughter Harriet determined to erect and endow an Episcopalian church in his memory. The  George W. South Memorial Church is the  result.

Richard Y. Cook, the Snows’ financial advisor, managed the project, and to design the church he chose Charles M. Bums (1838-1922), the leading architect of Episcopalian churches in late nineteenth-century Philadelphia. First to be built was the parish house in 1887, followed by the now largely destroyed chapel in 1888, and the church itself in 1890-1897. The walls of the buildings are of Port Deposit (Maryland) granite trimmed with reddish sandstone from Beaver County, Pennsylvania

Burns very faithfully replicated French Gothic architecture from the thirteenth-century, the “rayonnant” (radiating) period, which is characterized by round “rose” windows and spidery stone tracery. This faithfulness to a single style was a departure from the enthusiastic combination of diverse sources that had characterized architecture in the previous generation, epitomized by the eclecticism of Frank Furness. 

The ambitious stained glass program was designed and made by the famous English firm of Clayton and Bell. The sculptural decoration is exceptionally elaborate, consisting of carved busts of saints and apostles, as well as portraits of the donors and others connected with the church.

Paul Washington became the rector of the Church of the Advocate in 1962, holding that position until 1987. A staunch supporter of the civil rights movement in a parish that had become largely African American, he hosted the Third Annual National Conference on Black Power in 1968 and the Black Panther convention in 1970. On July 29, 1974, the church was the site of the ordination of the “Philadelphia Eleven,” the first women priests in the Episcopal Church. 

In order to supplement the church’s decoration with subject matter more directly related to the lives of his congregants, Washington commissioned a series of fourteen very large paintings depicting aspects of the Black experience in America, including slavery, emancipation, and the civil rights movement. Made between 1973 and 1976 by Philadelphia artists Walter Edmonds (1938-2011) and Richard J. Watson (1956- ), the paintings are in a vigorous, expressionist style. The subjects, chosen by Washington, are arranged around the church like a traditional biblical cycle, beginning with an interpretation of the Garden of Eden and ending with a vision of the Apocalypse.