Faith on theAVENUE
Entrance( left) and cemetery( above) of Germantown Mennonite Church. Daniel Kontz
On a cold day in December, we slowly drove down the length of Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia— all 8.5 miles of it— looking for its sacred places. For Katie, this was familiar territory, having been immersed in a study of the Avenue between 2005 and 2013 with a research team, which was published as Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street( Oxford University Press, 2014). She described it at the time as“ something between a project and an obsession.” This urban ecology was endlessly fascinating because it was always changing, despite the long, deep history that grounds Germantown Avenue. Originally an ancient trail called“ the Great Road” by the Lenape peoples, the Avenue went on to become home for European immigrants who brought their diverse faith traditions. The first remonstrance against slavery was signed in 1688 at the original Mennonite church there— one of two mother churches on the Avenue. The Avenue played a role in the Revolutionary War, as the site of the Battle of Germantown. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson moved to Germantown to escape the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in the city’ s center.
10 SACRED PLACES • SUMMER 2026