The Church of the Advocate is closing its soup kitchen after 40 years

The historic Church of the Advocate, which for decades stood as a bulwark for art, protest, community service, and sacredness, is ending its feeding ministry after 40 years, at least until new funding is secured.

Emails began circulating Wednesday that the soup kitchen, known as the Advocate Café, would stop operations on Monday, Sept. 30. The emails caused some people to fear that the 127-year-old Gothic Revival church in North Philadelphia might also be closing its doors. It had recently stopped having services in its sanctuary because of safety issues with the building.

“Bottom line, the church is NOT closing,” Jennifer Tucker, director of communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, wrote in an email to The Inquirer. “It will be open for worship on Sunday, and the afterschool program will continue.”

Barbara Easley Cox, a church member, said her phone had been ringing since Wednesday. She said she was told to come to church on Sunday to find out what is happening.

“I’m opposed to them closing it,” Cox said. “But I’m going to go and hear what they have to say.”

The church, at 1801 W. Diamond St., was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1996.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it became known as a center for social justice activities. With the late Father Paul Washington as rector, the church allowed Black Power and Black Panther conferences to take place in 1968 and 1970. In 1974, the church defiantly hosted the unauthorized ordination of the first 11 women priests in the Episcopal Church.

More recently, in 2017, then-pastor Rev. Renee McKenzie, now retired, invited an undocumented Mexican migrant family, a mother and her four children, to live at the church for a year while they applied for political asylum.

Tucker said several groups are pursuing grants and fundraising for the church, which she said needs $15 million to bring it up to safety standards. One group, made up of activists, educators, lawyers, and church leaders, is working to develop the Barbara Harris Center for Race and Reconciliation out of the Church of the Advocate, Tucker said.

The Right Rev. Barbara Harris, a Black woman born in Philadelphia, was the first woman elected as a bishop in the Anglican Church worldwide. She was elected in 1988 and ordained as bishop in 1989. She received death threats after she was elected.

“We are also looking to see if the Advocate could be a pilgrimage site for those interested in the church’s history, or headquarters for a prison rehabilitation and reentry program like the successful Homeboy Industries,” Tucker said.

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Tucker said the Diocese would send an email to members to emphasize its commitment to the future of the Advocate.

There are three buildings on the church’s historic main campus. A fourth building, a row house on Gratz Street, is called the Madeira Center.

The three buildings on the church campus are the main sanctuary, the parish house — which once hosted the soup kitchen — and the Washington Center, containing a gym and classrooms on the site of the former rectory, which was demolished about 20 years ago.

“The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania has invested $1,365,226 in the Church of the Advocate’s operations, buildings, and ministries in the last few years,” Tucker said. “As long as we can safely support the community, the Washington Center will be open to hosting voting and events that serve the neighborhood.”

The Washington Center, named for Father Washington, is a polling place for the Nov. 5 election.

One reason people were alarmed about the soup kitchen closing is that in July, the church was forced to halt all activities in the sanctuary after its insurance company deemed the structure unsafe.

Since then, church services for a dwindling congregation, where the attendance could sometimes be counted on one hand, have been held at the Madeira Center.

And a couple of years ago, the east wall of the parish house, where the soup kitchen first began operations, collapsed. That’s when the feeding ministry also began operating from the Madeira Center.

Tucker said in an interview that if people who haven’t heard the soup kitchen is closing show up after Monday, they will see notices directing them to other food services.

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The Church of the Advocate had a strong reputation for activism and art since the 1960s.

In addition to political conferences, Father Washington invited John Coltrane and other musicians to perform jazz at the church.

Between 1973 and 1976, two Philadelphia artists, Richard Watson and Walter Edmonds, painted vivid murals on wood panels attached to the sanctuary walls to tell the story of Black struggle for freedom and civil rights. And in 1998, Philadelphia author and playwright Lorene Cary established Art Sanctuary there.

“Father Washington made it a space where we could organize and stand up for human rights and civil rights,” said Karen Warrington, a North Philadelphia resident who once lived near the church. “But the congregation on Sundays didn’t grow.”