Calvary Episcopal Church is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The parish was founded in 1855.
The church reported 1,562 members in 2015 and 1,674 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported nationally in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income reported for the congregation in 2024 was $1,166,499. Average Sunday attendance (ASA) in 2024 was 253 persons.
History In 1854, Mrs. Mathilda Dallas Wilkins, a prominent East Liberty resident and the wife of Judge William Wilkins, requested unsuccessfully of Bishop Alonzo Potter, the third bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, that an Episcopal parish be founded in East Liberty. Not to be deterred, Mrs. Wilkins spearheaded an organizational meeting for a new parish. The Rev. William Paddock agreed to lead regular services for a new congregation on the condition that an appropriate worship site was found. Rev. Paddock, along with thirteen others, then incorporated Calvary Episcopal Church, subsequently adopting a charter and by-laws. The first services of the new Calvary congregation were held in January 1855 in space rented from a German Lutheran Church. The building was located in an alley between Collins and Sheridan avenues in the Village of East Liberty. Within a year, Calvary bought this first building.
The Calvary congregation grew and, in 1861, decided to purchase a lot a few blocks east of its first site at the corner of Penn Avenue and Station Street. On this property Calvary built a Gothic revival church that featured a ribbed-vaulted ceiling and steeply pitched Victorian roof. The architect was Richard Upjohn; construction cost was $9,000, of which $4,000 was mortgaged. As the parish continued to grow, major additions were erected between 1870 and 1895. Calvary called its fourth rector, Boyd Vincent, in 1874 and the parish grew rapidly under his leadership. During this time, the church began new missions that continued long after his rectorship. By 1900, Calvary Episcopal Church was the largest and most influential parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Calvary can be credited with the creation of several missions in the Pittsburgh region, sparked largely by Boyd Vincent, that eventually became established Episcopal parishes in Wilkinsburg (St. Stephen's), Oakland (Ascension), Mt. Lebanon (St. Paul's), and Fox Chapel (Fox Chapel Episcopal Church).
At the turn of the twentieth century, East Liberty's demographics began to change and the challenges of neighborhood decline caused Calvary congregation to consider relocation. In December 1904, the Calvary Vestry met to consider the sale of the Penn Avenue church and the construction of a new, larger structure. The decision to move was not an easy one. Although traffic noise from Penn Avenue and the Pennsylvania Railroad made the second location less desirable, church members felt great affection for their second church building. In early 1905, parishioners agreed to sell the second church property and authorize the purchase of a property on the northeast corner of Shady Avenue and Walnut Street for the new church.
For its new building on Shady Avenue, Calvary selected Ralph Adams Cram as architect. The choice was perhaps a surprising one given Cram's championing of Gothic architecture, which favored "high church" tendencies, and Calvary congregation's preference of "low church" practices. In example, the "low church" characteristic is evidenced in that Morning Prayer was the most common form of Sunday worship, while the Eucharist was only celebrated once a month. Reconciling this difference, Cram promised his design would be "strong, chaste, and uplifting." He drew inspiration of Calvary Church from Netley and Tintern abbeys in England. His vision included elements of Arthurian mysticism as well as Anglo-Catholicism. The spire and arches, according to Cram, "point us upward," the cross "everywhere crowns the whole," and "the ornament everywhere visible on buttress and balustrade, on door and windows and wall, is the shield as a symbol of the power of faith."
On December 19, 1907, Calvary held its first service in the imposing Gothic structure on Shady Avenue, which, at that time, consisted only of the church connected to a three-story parish house. The total cost was $400,000, but within seven years Calvary was free of debt, due in part to the generous assistance of industrialist, Henry Clay Frick. Frick's daughter, Helen Clay Frick, donated 11 bells from the Meneely Bell Foundry in Troy, NY, which can still be heard ringing from Calvary's landmark tower. Despite Cram's grand Gothic architecture, Calvary parish continued worship for many years in a "low church" fashion. Eventually, however, the grandeur and size of the new building led to a greater use of pageantry, more formal vestments, and full processions with choir, clergy, and acolytes. These being attributes of "high church" ritual, the influence of Cram's architecture had effect on the congregation.
From the congregation's beginning in 1855, Calvary relied on pew rentals to raise money for expenses. Under Calvary's by-laws, only members who rented pews were permitted to vote in annual parish meetings. By the 1940s, there was no longer availability of pews to rent, resulting in the disenfranchisement of some members. At its 1950 annual meeting, the vestry passed a resolution ending pew rentals. There is some documentation, though, that pledging and pew rentals occurred simultaneously during a period of transition.
Through the 1970s, Calvary followed a socially liberal course, while the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh shifted toward conservatism. This greatly impacted Calvary's influence within the Pittsburgh Diocese and upon its ability to advocate in the national Episcopal Church. Calvary was at the forefront of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. In 1974, the Rev. Beryl Choi, one of the first ordained women in the Church's history, became the first woman to hold a continuing parish appointment as a priest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Since then, women have always been represented among the clergy at Calvary.
Dimensions and seating capacity Extreme Length = 208 feet Extreme Width of Transepts = 108 feet Height of Nave = 55 feet Height of Lantern Tower = 75 feet Height of Tower = 119 feet Height of Spire = 101 feet Grade line to tip of Spire Cross = 220 feet Current Seating Capacity = 1,000 persons
Cram on Calvary
Cram believed that "the foundation of good architecture and structural integrity" was made visible in his work at Calvary Church. When viewing the church's exterior, the concept of an organic whole is observed by a clear and layered geometry. Each part - the tower, transepts, lancets, buttress, and west facade - form a cohesive whole. The Indiana limestone exterior presents a refined austerity, assisting in the way the building's form points toward the heavens at ever-higher levels. The viewer's eye is eased upward by the repeating, slender, and triple lancets as well as the play of light and shadow across the church's surface. Cram justifiably took great pride in the tower and remarked on it in his memoirs: "The central tower I look upon with a certain satisfaction, since there appears a new solution of the old problem of the transition from the square of the basic tower to the polygon of the spire. The building's exterior forms give promise of what lies inside this great sacred vessel." In a 1907 letter he described it as, "The best thing we ever did or shall do."
Stained glass Cram greatly disliked the stained glass of his contemporaries, John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, and wanted his churches to reflect earlier medieval aesthetics. Having difficulty finding craftsmen to recreate such techniques in the United States, Cram often turned to English artisans for stained glass. Heaton, Butler, and Bayne of London designed twenty-three windows in Calvary Church, including the large transept window of early English saints, martyrs, and missionaries. Cram eventually discovered two important American stained glass artists in Pittsburgh with whom he could work.
Pittsburgh's great innovator in stained glass was William Willet (1869–1921), owner and co-founder of Willet Stained Glass Studios, is responsible for making the first medallion window in America, in 1903 in First Presbyterian Church downtown, two years before construction began at Calvary Church. This window was celebrated as the first antique medallion window produced in the country to emulate medieval standards. Cram saw the window, was impressed by it, and hired Willet Stained Glass Studios to work in Calvary Church. Willet designed the East (Passion) Window above Calvary's high altar, the Annunciation window in the Lady Chapel, and the third window in the nave's north aisle depicting The Greatest in the Kingdom.
The second artisan in Pittsburgh significant to Calvary's stained glass was Charles J. Connick (1875–1945). Connick originally worked under Willet when he was the Director of Art at the Pittsburgh Stained Glass Company. He, having studied with Willet, was also a leader in the recreation of medieval stained glass techniques. Some of his best work is located in Pittsburgh, including Calvary Episcopal Church, where there are fourteen major windows plus sixteen lantern tower and twelve chancel clerestory windows by him in the church. Connick also designed several other windows located throughout the building.
Other stained glass windows in Calvary Episcopal Church include works by Cox & Sons of London, England; Harry E. Goodhue Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Gorham Company of New York, New York; and Reynolds, Francis & Rohnstock of Boston, Massachusetts.
Stained glass windows and subjects by firm with location and date C.J. Connick, Boston, Mass St. Jude (South Nave Clerestory, 1925) St. Philip (South Nave Clerestory, 1923) St. Matthias (North Nave Clerestory, 1925) St. Simon (North Nave, 1924) St. Thomas (North Nave, 1924) St. John the Evangelist (North Nave Clerestory, 1923) St. Cornelius (North Transept Clerestory West, 1925) St. Silas (North Transept Clerestory West, 1925) St. Timothy (South Transept Clerestory West, 1923) St. Titus (South Transept Clerestory West, 1923) St. Barnabas (South Transept Clerestory West, 1923) St. John Mark (South Transept Clerestory, 1923) Christian Virtues (12) (Chancel Clerestory, 1934) Mary and Martha (Lady Chapel Gallery, 1939) Supper at Emmaus (Choir Ambulatory, 1936) St. Francis (Lantern Tower South, "Friendly Saints", 1922) St. Elizabeth (Lantern Tower South, "Friendly Saints", 1922) St. Agnes (Lantern Tower South, "Friendly Saints", 1922) St. Vincent de Paul (Lantern Tower South, "Friendly Saints", 1922) St. Jerome (Lantern Tower West, "Wise Saints", 1922) St. Ambrose (Lantern Tower West, "Wise Saints",1922) St. Augustine (Lantern Tower West, "Wise Saints", 1922) St. Gregory (Lantern Tower West, "Wise Saints", 1922) St. George (Lantern Tower North, "Militant Saints", 1922) St. Genevieve (Lantern Tower North, "Militant Saints", 1922) St. Joan of Arc (Lantern Tower North, "Militant Saints", 1922) St. Theodore (Lantern Tower North, "Militant Saints", 1922) St. Michael (Lantern Tower East, "Archangel Saints", 1922) St. Gabriel (Lantern Tower East, "Archangel Saints", 1922) St. Raphael (Lantern Tower East, "Archangel Saints", 1922) St. Uriel (Lantern Tower East, "Archangel Saints", 1922) Nativity (Ladies Room, 1929) Pennsylvania Circuit Rider (Narthex South, 1929) Moravian Trumpeters (Narthex South, 1929) Benjamin Franklin and Kite (Narthex North, 1929) Johnny Appleseed (Narthex North, 1929) George Washington and Queen Aliquippa (Narthex West, 1939) Chief Cornplanter (Narthex West, 1939) Peter Minuit (Narthex West, 1939) Washington and "Half-King" Tanacharison (Narthex West, 1939) Capt. Contrecoeur (Parish House Walkway, 1927) William Penn and Native Americans (Parish House Walkway, 1927)