Gloria Dei Church National Historic Site

Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church, founded in 1677, and built between 1697 and 1700, is a historic church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The congregation was originally Swedish Lutheran, but has been Episcopalian since 1845. Gloria Dei is the oldest church in Pennsylvania and second oldest Swedish church in the United States after Holy Trinity Church (Old Swedes) in Wilmington, Delaware. Swedish pioneers of New Sweden were the first to settle the area in 1646. An existing blockhouse at Wicaco, (now South Philadelphia) had been renovated for worship in 1677 and used until the present church (built beginning in 1697) was consecrated on the First Sunday after Trinity, July 2, 1700. A fire destroyed many of the church records in 1740....