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Religion · the City of Churches, congregation by congregation
Fort Wayne calls itself the City of Churches, and for once the civic nickname understates the record. This section is that record: every congregation and faith institution the sources support, in the order they arrived — Jesuit missionaries at the French posts, a Baptist missionary's interracial congregation at the fort, the Presbyterians of 1831, the German Catholics and Lutherans who built the parish systems, Indiana's oldest Jewish congregation, the Black churches that organized under the black laws, the denominations that put national headquarters here, and the mosques, temples and immigrant congregations of the refugee era. Where the sources disagree on a founding date, both dates stand in the entry. Where a familiar claim could not be verified at all, it is left out.
Catholic missions at the posts
c. 1719–1763, and visiting priests thereafter — before the city
The presence: The first organized religion at the head of the Maumee was Roman Catholic, and it arrived with the French. Jesuit missionaries were established at Fort Miami, the French post beside the Miami town of Kekionga where…
Isaac McCoy's mission church, and the First Baptist line
Organized 3 August 1822 — reorganized 4 March 1837
The claim: The oldest congregation claim in Fort Wayne belongs to the Baptists. The Allen County Genealogical Society's Wayne Township church survey, drawing on the congregation's own record, states that the first assembly of any…
The Methodists: mission of 1828, Berry Street Chapel, and First Wayne Street
Mission 1828 — first church 1840 — divided 1849 — reunited 1968
The founding: Methodism is Fort Wayne's second organized presence. The Indiana United Methodist Conference's heritage record and the congregation's historical marker agree: Methodism in the Fort Wayne area was organized as a…
First Presbyterian Church
Organized 1 July 1831 — the oldest continuing congregation
The founding: Fort Wayne had no organized religion for its first decade as a town. In December 1828 the postmaster Allen Hamilton, "feeling an anxiety to enjoy church privileges," helped secure the missionary visits of the Rev.…
St. Augustine's: the first Catholic parish
Land purchased 1831 — parish erected 1836 — first resident pastor 1836
Badin and the land: The Catholic thread resumes a decade after the Presbyterians. Father Stephen Badin — the first priest ordained in the United States — was placed in charge of the Potawatomi mission in Indiana in 1830, and the…
St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the German Lutheran beginning
Organized 14 October 1837
The founding: On 14 October 1837, twenty-three heads of families met in the Allen County courthouse to adopt a "Formula for the Discipline of the Evangelical Lutheran Church" and organize the congregation long known as the First…
Trinity Episcopal Church
Christ Church 1839 — Trinity organized 25 May 1844 — present church 1866
Two foundings: The Episcopal Church came to Fort Wayne on the visits of Jackson Kemper, missionary bishop of the Northwest, who first assessed the town in 1837. In 1839 he sent the Rev. Benjamin Hutchins of Philadelphia, and…
Trinity English Lutheran Church
Organized April 1846 — the English-language division
The division: Within a decade of St. Paul's founding, a part of the congregation wanted worship in English rather than German. The separation was made, in the words of Slocum and Robertson's History of the Maumee River Basin …
Concordia Theological Seminary: the Fort Wayne founding
First classes October 1846
The school: The pastor shortage Wyneken advertised to Germany was answered in part by training men on the ground. Wilhelm Löhe in Bavaria gathered eleven theological students and sent them to Fort Wayne; with three young men…
Congregation Achduth Vesholom
Organized 26 October 1848 — the oldest Jewish congregation in Indiana
The founding: Jewish life in Fort Wayne began in 1840, when Abraham Oppenheimer and Sigmund Redelsheimer became the city's first Jewish residents. On 13 October 1848 a society of twenty-three members — organized as a "Society for…
St. Mary Mother of God: the German Catholic parish
Created 29 November 1848 — the first German-speaking church in the area
The procession: The German Catholics of St. Augustine's wanted the Gospel preached in their own language. In 1848 thirty German families bought lots at the present corner of Lafayette Street and Jefferson Boulevard for 1,700…
Turner Chapel A.M.E. Church
Organized 1849 — Fort Wayne's first Black church
Under the black laws: Turner Chapel traces to the first Black settlers of Fort Wayne. By 1845 the A.M.E. Church's Ohio and Western Conference had taken responsibility for the fledgling congregation, served by ministers riding the…
The Diocese of Fort Wayne (now Fort Wayne–South Bend) and its cathedral
Erected 8 January 1857 — cathedral dedicated 8 December 1860
The see: Until 1857 all Indiana belonged to the Diocese of Vincennes. On 8 January 1857 the Holy See erected the Diocese of Fort Wayne from its northern half. The first bishop, John Henry Luers of Cincinnati, was appointed on 22…
Plymouth Congregational Church
Organized 1870
The congregation: The Congregationalists, the last of the old New England denominations to organize in Fort Wayne, formed Plymouth Congregational Church in 1870, in the post–Civil War building wave that filled the downtown with churches. The ACGSI church survey fixes the organization at 1870; the congregation worships today as Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ at 501 West Berry Street, in the historic West Central neighbourhood, a block from Trinity Episcopal and two from the cathedral — the surviving core of the nineteenth-century churchscape described in the next entry. Plymouth's programs and its later social-gospel and open-and-affirming turns are documented in the congregation's own materials; the building is treated in the architecture record.
Sources:
- ACGSI, "Wayne Township Churches of Allen County, Indiana" — organization in 1870.
- Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, congregational site (plymouthfw.org) — the present Berry Street church and ministry.
The German century: two parish systems and the downtown churchscape
1848–1914, and the system that outlasted the language
The pattern: From the 1840s to the First World War, Fort Wayne's religious growth ran on a German engine, on both sides of the Reformation. The Lutheran mother church, St. Paul's (1837), sent its pastors and its people outward…
B'nai Israel, B'nai Jacob, and the Jewish Federation
B'nai Israel 1894 — B'nai Jacob 1912 — one congregation again in 2019
The second and third congregations: The Jewish community that Achduth Vesholom organized in 1848 was joined, as Eastern European immigration reached Fort Wayne in the 1880s and 1890s, by congregations of the newcomers. The Jewish…
The second wave of Black congregations: First Zion and Pilgrim Baptist
First Zion A.M.E. Zion 1918 — Pilgrim Baptist 1919
The foundings: Turner Chapel stood alone for seventy years. The Great Migration era doubled the city's Black congregation count in two years. First Zion A.M.E. Zion Church was organized in 1918 with eleven members — the A.M.E.…
Blackhawk Ministries
Founded 1969
The founding: The suburban church era opens with Blackhawk. The church — legally Blackhawk Baptist Church, Inc., today Blackhawk Ministries — was founded in 1969 and first led by Dr. David Jeremiah, newly arrived from Cedarville…
Islam in Fort Wayne: the Islamic Center and Masjid Al-Quds
Community founded 1970 — incorporated 1987
The institutions: Organized Muslim life in Fort Wayne dates, in the community's own scholarly account, to 1970, when the Islamic Center of Fort Wayne was founded; the centre was incorporated in 1987 (its federal exempt status…
The seminary leaves, and returns: 1861–1976
To St. Louis 1861 — to Springfield 1875 — home again 1976
The exile: Concordia Theological Seminary spent 115 of its years away from the city that founded it. In 1861, with the Civil War opening, the seminary followed its sister institution's logic in reverse: Missouri, unlike Indiana…
WBCL: faith on the FM dial
First broadcast 8 January 1976
The station: Faith broadcasting in Fort Wayne is not a footnote but a ratings fact. WBCL signed on 8 January 1976 from Fort Wayne Bible College — the college's 1976 yearbook, The Guidon , calls it "Fort Wayne's first and only…
The Burmese Christian congregations
First Burmese refugees 1991 — congregations from the 1990s on
The arrival: The refugee resettlement that remade Fort Wayne's religious map ran, from the start, through its churches. The Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend's Catholic Charities established its Refugee Resettlement Program in…
St. Augustine Lutheran Church: a pan-African congregation
Founded 1998
The congregation: Not every Fort Wayne congregation named for Augustine is Catholic. St. Augustine Lutheran Church was founded in 1998 by an African student at the city's Lutheran seminary, expressly to serve the African refugees…
Just Neighbors: the interfaith shelter
Created 1999 — opened November 2000
The institution: Fort Wayne's congregations act together in exactly one standing institution, and it is this one. In 1999 local congregations created the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Fort Wayne, a chapter of the…
Pathway Community Church and the megachurch era
Prayer group 2001 — public launch 2002
The founding: Pathway Community Church, the largest congregation of the suburban era, began when four families started praying together in 2001 about planting a church. It launched publicly in early 2002 in a high school…
The widening circle: Orthodox, Burmese Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh
1958–2015 and after
The Orthodox: Greek immigrants reached Fort Wayne in the early twentieth century, and the parish of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox dates its community to 1959 — the history the parish tells at its Greek Festival, which reached its…
The headquartered denominations
Missionary Church 1969 — Fellowship of Evangelical Churches 2003 — the AALC 2007–2022
The claim, verified: Fort Wayne is often said to host the national headquarters of several denominations. The claim as usually printed — in Wikipedia's Fort Wayne article of December 2012 — lists four: the American Association of…
"City of Churches": the moniker and the count
A nickname of the late 19th century — tested ever since
The name: Fort Wayne has called itself the City of Churches since the late nineteenth century, when it stood as the regional hub of three great traditions at once — the Catholic diocese seated here in 1857, the Lutherans whose…
Faith in public life
The congregations in the city's common life
The record, briefly: Fort Wayne's churches have never been only Sunday institutions. The wealthiest man's wife gave the land for the Black congregation's first real home (Turner Chapel, above); the German parishes built the…
A Gazetteer of Fort Wayne Churches
The religion record of this city, as it stands, tells the founding stories well and the parish map unevenly. The cathedral parish, the German Lutheran mother churches, the first Black congregations, and the denominational systems all stand in it at full size. What it has not carried is the gazetteer underneath those stories: the daughter parishes and daughter congregations, ward by ward and decade by decade, that turned a handful of pioneer churches into a city of churches. This gazetteer supplies that layer. It enters every historic congregation of the city that the earlier record mentions only in passing or not at all, at the depth the surviving record allows: the founding, the denomination, the building line, and the present state, verified against the denominations' own records, the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana's church list, the Allen County Public Library's congregational-records directory, the National Register nominations, and the congregations' own published histories, as of November 2026.
The scope is the city of Fort Wayne: congregations whose ground stands inside the present city limits, in whatever township the genealogical lists file them, with the township printed where it differs from the city's old Wayne Township core. The county's rural congregations, however old, belong to the county's record and are named here only where a city entry cannot be told without them. The anchor count is the Fort Wayne Sentinel's own: on 15 October 1904 the paper counted forty-seven congregations inside the city — seven of them Roman Catholic, ten Lutheran of the German and English synods, six Methodist Episcopal, four Presbyterian, and the rest scattered across nineteen further traditions. Every congregation on the genealogical society's pre-1920 city roll is entered below, carried in a combined entry, or named in the closing roll; the postwar Catholic parishes, which the earlier record omitted entire, are entered one by one. Congregations founded after 1950 outside that parish system are not individually entered; they number in the hundreds and belong to the city's general record, not to this gazetteer.
Carried whole in the religion record already, and therefore pointed to rather than retold: the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the Catholic missions before it; St. Mary Mother of God (1848); St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church (1837) and Trinity English Lutheran Church (1846); First Presbyterian Church (1831); Plymouth Congregational Church (1870); Congregation Achduth Vesholom (1848), B'nai Israel, and Congregation B'nai Jacob (1912); Turner Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church (1849); First Zion AME Zion Church (1918) and Pilgrim Baptist Church (1919); the First Baptist line from the McCoy mission; and Concordia Theological Seminary (1846). Two corrections of namesakes run through what follows and are printed wherever they bite: the city's St. Paul's are two, a Lutheran church of 1837 and a Catholic parish of 1864, and its St. John's and St. Joseph's multiply in the county besides.
St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church (1846)
French Catholic parish of the north side · organized 1846 · Washington Township ground inside the present city · active, November 2026
Founding: The oldest Catholic parish in Allen County after the cathedral parish itself stands not downtown but on the Auburn Road, where French Catholic immigrants settled in the 1830s in a district they called New France, or New…
St. Paul's Catholic Church (1864–2004)
German Catholic parish of the west end · organized 1864–65 · closed 2004, building razed · not the Lutheran St. Paul's of 1837
Founding: In the winter of 1864–65 about thirty-five German-speaking Catholic families of the city's west end gathered at the Rekers Brothers' residence and organized a parish of their own, distinct from St. Mary's downtown.…
St. Peter's Catholic Church (1872)
German Catholic parish of the southeast side · organized 1871, established 1872 · 518 East DeWald Street · active, November 2026
Founding: In the summer of 1871 the German- and French-speaking Catholics southeast of downtown met under Peter Mettler and won Bishop Joseph Dwenger's approval for a parish of their own — the city's fourth, and its third…
St. Patrick's Catholic Church (1889)
Catholic parish of the south side · organized 1889 · 2120 South Harrison Street · active, November 2026 · not St. Patrick's of Arcola
Founding: Early in 1889 Bishop Dwenger bought property on Fairfield Avenue for a parish for the city's growing south side, and a school opened there that year. In October 1889 he appointed Father T. M. O'Leary the first pastor.…
Most Precious Blood Catholic Church (1897)
Catholic parish of the northwest side · founded 1897 by the Missionaries of the Precious Blood · 1515 Barthold Street · active, November…
Founding: The parish was a foundation of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the order to which Bishop Dwenger himself had belonged before his episcopate. Dwenger had envisioned a parish in the Bloomingdale district; his…
St. Hyacinth Catholic Church (1910–1995)
Polish Catholic parish of the southeast side · organized 24 July 1910 · closed fall 1995 · church demolished 2025
Founding: Polish immigrants came to Fort Wayne from the early 1890s, settled in the southeast of the city, and attended St. Peter's — where, understanding neither German nor English, they petitioned Bishop Alerding, through St.…
St. Joseph Catholic Church (1913)
Italian Catholic parish · organized 1913 · 2213 Brooklyn Avenue · active, November 2026
Founding: Fort Wayne's national parishes served Germans, Poles, and Irish; none served the Italians. In 1913 Loreto Starace, a lawyer the parish history calls a lay apostle, appealed to Bishop Herman J. Alerding, who appointed…
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (1926)
Catholic parish of the southeast side · organized 1926 · 4525 Arlington Avenue · active, November 2026 · not the New Haven parish of 1861
Founding: The genealogical society's church list dates this parish from 1926 and carries it active; the Allen County Public Library's congregational directory holds its published histories and its dedication booklet. The parish…
St. Andrew Catholic Church (1909)
Catholic parish of the east edge · 2610 New Haven Avenue · Adams Township ground inside the present city · active, November 2026
Founding: The two lists this gazetteer works from date the parish a year apart: the genealogical society's church list gives 1909, the diocesan parish list 1910. Both are printed as they stand. The parish stands on New Haven Avenue at the city's eastern edge.
Present state: Active. When St. Hyacinth's closed in the fall of 1995, the diocesan list records the two parishes as combined, and St. Andrew's carried the Polish parish's remaining people.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Adams Township, 1909, active."
- Diocese of Fort Wayne parish list (RootsWeb transcription): "St. Andrew's Catholic Church [Est. 1910], 2610 New Haven Ave.; St. Hyacinth's and St. Andrew's have been combined."
St. Jude Catholic Church (1929)
Catholic parish of the northeast side · established 12 April 1929 · 2130 Pemberton Drive · active, November 2026
Founding: The parish was surveyed for as early as 1924, when the diocese tested whether the city's northeast district could sustain a parish of its own. On 7 May 1926 the diocese bought five acres from Henry F. F. Kruse and the…
Queen of Angels Catholic Church (1947)
Catholic parish of the northwest side · announced 4 July 1947 · 1500 West State Boulevard · active, November 2026
Founding: On 4 July 1947 Bishop John F. Noll announced that he had directed Father William Faber to establish a new parish on State Street, so that the overflow crowd at Most Precious Blood Church would have a place to worship in…
Sacred Heart Catholic Church (1947)
Catholic parish of the southeast side · founded 1947 · 4643 Gaywood Drive · a personal parish for the Traditional Latin Mass since 2011 ·…
Founding: Sacred Heart was a parish of the postwar building boom. Ralph L. Shirmeyer donated six acres at Gaywood Drive and Capitol Avenue, and Archbishop John Francis Noll assigned Father Fred Westendorf, just returned from Army…
St. Therese Catholic Church (1947)
Catholic parish of Waynedale · established 1947 · 2304 Lower Huntington Road · active, November 2026
Founding and building line: The diocesan parish list dates St. Therese from 1947, in the Waynedale district of the city's southwest. Its present church is a building of the Bishop D'Arcy years: the diocese's own building record lists a new church for St. Therese in 1999. The parish's founding narrative — its first pastor and first building — is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach, and stands as a named open item.
Present state: Active, at 2304 Lower Huntington Road.
Sources:
- Diocese of Fort Wayne parish list (RootsWeb transcription): "St. Therese Catholic Church [Est. 1947], 2304 Lower Huntington Rd."
- Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Bishop D'Arcy tribute issue, Today's Catholic, 17 February 2013 (new church building, 1999).
St. Henry Catholic Church
Catholic parish of the southeast side · 3029 East Paulding Road · active, November 2026 · founding year not reached
What the record reached shows: St. Henry's is the southeast side's parish, its church at 3029 East Paulding Road and its parish office at 5711 St. Henry's Lane. In the 1990s its school was the campus at which Sacred Heart's and…
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church (1957)
Catholic parish of the northeast side · established 7 June 1957 · 4916 Trier Road · active, November 2026
Catholic parish of the northeast side, at 4916 Trier Road. St. Charles Borromeo Parish was established on 7 June 1957 by Bishop Leo A. Pursley, the seventy-ninth parish founded in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, with Father…
Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic Church (1969)
Catholic parish of the northeast side · established 1969 · 7215 St. Joseph Road · active, November 2026
Founding: Our Lady of Good Hope was established in 1969 as a daughter parish of St. Charles Borromeo, carved from the northeast side's postwar growth twelve years after its mother. The diocesan parish list dates it to the same year.
Present state: Active, at 7215 St. Joseph Road. Under Bishop D'Arcy the parish added a daycare center and a new rectory.
Sources:
- St. Charles Borromeo Parish, parish history (the daughter parish, 1969).
- Diocese of Fort Wayne parish list (RootsWeb transcription): "Our Lady of Good Hope Parish [Est. 1969], 7215 Saint Joe Rd."
- Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Bishop D'Arcy tribute issue, Today's Catholic, 17 February 2013 (daycare center and rectory).
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church (1988)
Catholic parish of the southwest side · established 1988 · 10700 Aboite Center Road · Aboite Township ground inside the present city ·…
Founding: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is the newest Catholic parish of the city's historic roll, established in 1988 under Bishop John M. D'Arcy — the parish's own tribute in the diocesan newspaper thanks him for "his vision, support…
The Lutheran daughters are the gazetteer's second repair. The religion record carries the two mother churches whole — St. Paul's of 1837, mother and grandmother of churches in its own historian's phrase, and Trinity English of 1846 — and the seminary they built. What it has not carried is the family: the congregations St. Paul's divided itself to plant, and the one that walked out of it, which between them account for most of the Lutheran map of the city. They stand here in founding order.
St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church (1853)
Lutheran congregation (ELCA) of the west end · organized 1852–53 · 729 West Washington Boulevard · active, November 2026
Founding: St. John's is the congregation that left. St. Paul's own historian, Martin H. Bertram, writing the mother church's 125-year history in 1962, records it without varnish: "The withdrawal of members in 1852 to organize…
Emmanuel Lutheran Church (1867)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the west end · founded 26 July 1867 · 917 West Jefferson Boulevard · active, November 2026
Founding: Emmanuel is St. Paul's first daughter, made by division: in 1867, with Fort Wayne's population nearly doubling in seven years, St. Paul's split itself along Harrison Street. The 211 voting members east of Harrison…
Suburban Bethlehem Lutheran Church (1882)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the northwest side · organized 1882 · Washington Township · active, November 2026
Founding and state: The genealogical society's list dates Suburban Bethlehem from 1882 and files it under Washington Township, on the city's northwest side, where it keeps its own cemetery. It is the oldest of the city's township-ground Lutheran congregations still active, and stands here at the size the reached record gives it: organized 1882, Missouri Synod, active in the society's list and the synod's. Its building line is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "Suburban Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Washington Township, 1882, active."
Zion Lutheran Church (1883)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the south side · organized 1883 · 2313 South Hanna Street · active, November 2026
Founding: Zion was organized in 1883 by German-American members released from St. Paul's downtown to plant a congregation on the city's south side — "those German-Americans who came from our mother church, St. Paul's downtown, to…
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church (1891)
Lutheran congregation of the city · organized 1891 · state contested in the record
What the record shows: The genealogical society's church list carries Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wayne Township, organized 1891, with its records at the Allen County Public Library — among them the records of St. John's…
Redeemer Lutheran Church (1892)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the south side · organized 1892 · 202 West Rudisill Boulevard · active, November 2026
Founding and state: Redeemer was organized in 1892, its parish registers running from 1893, and stood from the first among the English-language congregations of the Lutheran system — the Sentinel's 1904 roster captions it…
Christ's Evangelical Lutheran Church (1892–1936)
Lutheran congregation of the west end · 1892–1936 · 237 West Jefferson Boulevard · closed
The record: One Lutheran congregation of the 1890s did not survive. Christ's Evangelical Lutheran Church stood at 237 West Jefferson Boulevard, a few doors from Emmanuel, and the genealogical society's list dates it 1892 to 1936, its records held at the Allen County Public Library. The library's directory marks it defunct. Nothing further of its founding or its people is carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach; it stands here so that the Lutheran map of the city is not drawn as if every plant of that decade lived.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "Christ's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wayne Township, 1892–1936."
- Allen County Public Library, Congregational Records directory ("Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, 237 W. Jefferson [Defunct]").
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church (1893)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the north side · organized 1893 · active, November 2026 · not Trinity English of 1846
The record: The city's third Trinity is a Missouri Synod congregation organized in 1893, carried active in the genealogical society's list with its records at the Allen County Public Library. It is printed here chiefly to be kept apart from its namesakes — Trinity English Lutheran Church of 1846, carried whole in the religion record, and Trinity Episcopal — with which the directories and the memory of the city alike confuse it. Its building line and founding narrative are not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Wayne Township, 1893, active, Lutheran (LCMS)."
Concordia Lutheran Church (1899)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) of the east side · organized 6 August 1899 · 4245 Lake Avenue · active, November 2026
Founding: Concordia began as St. Paul's Eastern District, planted so that the east side's children would not have to walk downtown to St. Paul's school at Barr and Madison. On 6 August 1899 the voters' assembly of St. Paul's…
Emmaus Lutheran Church (1900)
Lutheran congregation (LCMS) · organized 1 January 1900 · now on Covington Road in the southwest · active, November 2026
Founding: Emmaus was organized on 1 January 1900 and worshipped first on Broadway Street, downtown's southwestern edge; the Sentinel's 1904 roster names its pastor, the Rev. Philip Wambsganss. In 1923 the congregation opened a…
Two German Reformed congregations of the nineteenth century, and the one United Church of Christ congregation they became, were carried in the religion record in a single passing mention — a building sold, a Karen congregation worshipping in it. Their full lines belong here.
St. John's Reformed Church (1844) and Grace Reformed Church (1883) — Grace St. John's United Church of Christ
German Reformed, then Evangelical and Reformed, then United Church of Christ · merged 1983 · the building sold and now Living Stream Karen…
The St. John's line: St. John's Reformed Church, the German Reformed congregation, was organized in 1844 — the senior of the city's two Reformed churches. Its pastors include the Rev. Carl M. Schaaf and, at the Sentinel's 1904…
Salem United Church of Christ (1868)
German Reformed, then Evangelical and Reformed, then United Church of Christ · organized 1868 · active, November 2026
The record: Salem is the third of the city's German Reformed congregations, organized in 1868, and followed the tradition's common road: Salem Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1934, Salem United Church of Christ in 1957. The Sentinel's 1904 church roster photographs it — "Salem Reformed Church," the Rev. Philip Ruhl pastor. The genealogical society's list carries it active, with its records at the Allen County Public Library. Its building line is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "Salem United Church of Christ, Wayne Township, 1868, active" (name changes of 1934 and 1957).
- Fort Wayne Sentinel, 15 October 1904 (Rev. Philip Ruhl, pastor).
The Orthodox parishes were the religion record's other passing mentions — three congregations carried in a few lines among the widening-circle entries. Each is a founding of the postwar immigrant city, and each now stands at gazetteer depth.
St. Nicholas Orthodox Church (1947)
Orthodox Church in America, Bulgarian Diocese · organized 1947 · 3535 Crescent Avenue · active, November 2026
Founding: St. Nicholas is the Macedonian parish. At the end of the Second World War the Macedonian Patriotic Organization made a concerted effort to establish an Orthodox church in Fort Wayne; the Orthodox Church in America's…
Holy Trinity Orthodox Church (c. 1958)
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America · founded about 1958 · active, November 2026
Fort Wayne has had two churches named Holy Trinity, and they are kept apart throughout this record. This is the Russian one: a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, in the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America. The…
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (1959)
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America · community dated 1959 · 110 East Wallen Road · church consecrated 24–25 October 2025 · active…
Founding: Fort Wayne's Greek immigrants came in the early twentieth century, in Archbishop Elpidophoros's words at the consecration, carrying "a devotion to the lands and traditions they had seemingly left behind"; the parish's…
First Christian Church (1871)
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) · organized 1871 as the West Jefferson Street Church of Christ · 4800 South Calhoun Street · active…
Founding: The Disciples' work in Fort Wayne began a generation before the congregation: the Columbus Convention of October 1846 sent John B. New to the town as a missionary, as Commodore Wesley Cauble's Disciples of Christ in…
The Other Presbyterian Churches: Westminster, Third, Bethany, Westfield
Presbyterian congregations of the city beyond First Presbyterian (carried whole in the religion record) · 1844–2011
Westminster (1844–2000): The city's second Presbyterian church was organized in 1844 as Second Presbyterian and renamed Westminster Presbyterian Church in 1894. It stood through the whole life of the city's Presbyterian system…
The Methodist Daughter Churches
Methodist, Evangelical, and United Brethren congregations of the city beyond the circuit founding (carried in the religion record) ·…
First Wayne Street (1840, 1849, 1968): The city's Methodist system divided, like St. Paul's Lutheran, along Harrison Street. First Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1840; Wayne Street Methodist Episcopal Church was…
The Other Baptist Churches: Immanuel, South Wayne, Union
Baptist congregations of the city beyond the First Baptist line and the Black congregations (carried whole in the religion record) ·…
Immanuel Baptist Church (1889–1994): A Baptist congregation of the city's second generation, carried in the genealogical society's list from 1889 to 1994, its records held by the Fort Wayne History Center.
First Church of Christ, Scientist (1898)
Christian Science · introduced 1890 · incorporated 17 March 1898 · Fairfield Avenue church dedicated 24 April 1949 · active
The record: Christian Science was introduced to Fort Wayne in 1890, when its first student moved to the city; in 1892 two families began meeting on Sundays to read the Bible Lessons. The Sentinel counted two Christian Science…
First Mennonite Church (1903)
Mennonite · organized 1903 · active, November 2026
The record: First Mennonite Church was organized in 1903 — the city's own Mennonite congregation, distinct from the rural Mennonite churches of the county's eastern townships. The genealogical society's list carries it active, and the Allen County Public Library holds a published history of the congregation. Its building line is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "First Mennonite Church, Wayne Township, 1903, active."
- Allen County Public Library, Congregational Records directory (a published history of the congregation held).
Lincolnshire Church of the Brethren (1901)
Church of the Brethren · organized 1901 as First Church of the Brethren · renamed 1958 · active, November 2026
The record: The city's Brethren congregation was organized in 1901 as First Church of the Brethren and took its present name, Lincolnshire Church of the Brethren, in 1958. Its centennial history — Casey Drudge's Appropriate Response: The Centennial History of the Church of the Brethren in Fort Wayne — is published and held at the Allen County Public Library. The genealogical society's list carries the congregation active.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "Lincolnshire Church of the Brethren — First Church of the Brethren changed name 1958 — Wayne Township, 1901, active."
- Allen County Public Library, Congregational Records directory (Drudge, Appropriate Response, centennial history).
The Universalist Church and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Universalist, then Unitarian Universalist · 1875–1880; the present congregation's line dated from 1876 · active, November 2026
The record: Fort Wayne's first Universalist church is dated by the genealogical society's list to 1875, and its life to 1880 — five years. The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne, which the same list carries as active, traces its own line to 1876, with an interruption the list dates to 1939. Both datings are printed as the list gives them; the congregation's fuller history is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: First Universalist Church (1875–1880); Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fort Wayne (line from 1876, interruption to 1939, active).
First Missionary Church (1905)
Missionary Church · organized 1905 · active, November 2026
The record: First Missionary Church was organized in 1905, the mother congregation in the city where its denomination keeps its headquarters — the denomination's Fort Wayne seat is carried in the religion record's account of headquartered denominations. The genealogical society's list carries the congregation active, and the library holds materials on it. Its building line is not carried in the digitized sources this gazetteer could reach.
Sources:
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "First Missionary Church, Wayne Township, 1905, active."
- Allen County Public Library, Congregational Records directory.
The Remainder of the Historic Roll
Congregations of the pre-1920 city roll carried at the size the reached record gives them
The roll: Christ Temple Apostolic Church, organized 1917, active. The Church of God on Sherman Street, organized 1897, active. First Church of the Nazarene, organized 1916, active. First Seventh-day Adventist Church of Fort…
The gazetteer's map, drawn whole, is a different city from the one the founding stories alone suggest: a Catholic system of sixteen parishes inside the present limits, three of them closed and one of those demolished within living memory; a Lutheran system in which one mother church divided itself three times and lost a fourth company to a quarrel; two Reformed congregations that became one and then became a Karen Baptist church's building; three Orthodox parishes of the postwar migrations; and, underneath all of it, the ward-by-ward planting of the Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Disciples. What remains unreached is named in the entries themselves — founding narratives that sit in print at the Allen County Public Library and in parish offices rather than in digitized form. The count the Sentinel made in 1904 was forty-seven congregations. The count of this gazetteer is every one of their successors that the record could still find.
