Category: News || By Staff and Submitted Reports

(Editor's Note: The author has a conflict of interest. See below.)



Liberty Borough's Good Samaritan Church has vacated the structure it has used since 1959 and is looking for a new home.

The congregation, formerly located in a classic white, wood-frame church at the corner of Liberty Way and Southern Avenue, this week began holding Sunday services in the chapel of the Liberty Manor Personal Care Home across the street, according to a press release.

Good Samaritan is one of more than 40 former Episcopal Church congregations that voted to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh for a new Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. The dioceses split over theological differences, including the ordination of openly gay clergy, which the Episcopal Church allows.

In October 2009, state Commonwealth Court ruled that all property that had belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh belonged to the Episcopal Church, not the new Anglican diocese. Last year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected an appeal of that ruling by the Anglican Diocese.

"We are excited about this opportunity for a rebirth as a congregation," the Rev. Peggy Means, vicar of Good Samaritan, said in the press release. "This is a new opportunity in a new year to reach the Mon-Yough area with the love of Jesus Christ."

According to a 1962 history of Liberty Borough, the building at the corner of Liberty and Southern was built in 1902 as the original home of Liberty Presbyterian Church. Good Samaritan was founded in 1958 as a mission church of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Walnut and Eighth Avenue, Downtown, and relocated to the former Presbyterian church in 1959.

The chapel at Liberty Manor will serve as a temporary home while the congregation continues to search for a permanent home, according to the press release. In addition, St. Martin's Church in Monroeville has also relocated and is now meeting at Bethel United Presbyterian Church on Beatty Road.

(Hat tip: Lionel Deimel's weblog)

(Editor's Note: The writer is a member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Downtown, and incidentally attended pre-school at Good Samaritan many, many years ago.)