Philippus United Church of Christ
Photo by Laura Laugle
The building which today houses Philippus United Church of Christ was dedicated in the winter of 1891 as Philippus Kirche, but the congregation traces its roots back to 1814. It was then part of St. John’s German Protestant Church. In 1881 a faction broke off from St. John’s and began worshipping under the name of St. Matthew United Evangelical German Church.
In 1890 the pastor introduced material into Sunday School lessons to which the church board objected. As a result, the pastor and 170 members of the congregation founded their own church and dedicated the building pictured left in 1891, which houses an organ donated by local German-American beer baron Christian Moerlein. Because of increasing animosity toward Germans and German– Americans as a result of the First World War, the congregation was forced to switch to using English most of the time in 1921, though German services were held through 1983.
Bibliographical Sources:
The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati: A Portrait of Two Hundred Years, by Geoffrey J. Giglierano, Deborah A. Overmeyer, with Frederic L. Propas, The Cincinnati Historical Society, 1988, page 90
German Heritage Guide to the Greater Cincinnati Area, by Don Heinrich Tolzmann, Little Miami Publishing Company, Milford, Ohio, 2003, page 74
