Gloria Dei Old Swedes Episcopal Church

This guide to Gloria Dei Old Swedes Episcopal Church in Philadelphia opens with the legend of Saint Lucia, a girl who wore a crown of candles so her hands stayed free to smuggle bread to persecuted Christians hiding in the dark. It traces how that story is reenacted every December since 1938 inside the oldest church in Pennsylvania, and follows the carved angels and model ships brought from Sweden that recall the colonists who built this riverside settlement between 1638 and 1656. You'll hear about the hunger and disease that thinned that colony through the 1650s, long before the brick church around you was dedicated in 1700. Look up at the carved angels and the model ships overhead as you listen.