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Christ Lutheran Church |
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Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1835 to provide English- speaking worship for Lutherans in Gettysburg. The founder, Samuel Simon Schmucker, who also founded the Lutheran Seminary and the College, was concerned to produce English-speaking leaders and worship for a church that had been largely German-speaking. In fact Christ Lutheran came out from the “German Church” at High and Stratton Streets which served Lutheran and Reformed Congregations. Through the nineteenth century much of the pastoral leadership was provided by seminary and college professors. The original building is largely intact today, though in the 1870’s and again in the 1930’s improvements included enlargement to the south end of the sanctuary and building. It is the oldest continuing worship space in Gettysburg. For more than a century it was also the locus for college and seminary student attendance at worship and for large assemblies for the college and seminary. In 1957 an additional historic building, the present “Hill House,” was acquired by the congregation, to which a Christian education building was added. The historic church, less than a block from the center of Gettysburg, figured prominently in the events of July 1-3, 1863, and their aftermath. Early in the battle , the church became a hospital in which the wounded from both armies were cared for. Diaries of a volunteer “nurse” who ministered to the wounded and of a Union soldier who was a patient provide a moving account of the sufferings of the soldiers and the compassion of those who nursed them. One incident of those chaotic days is memorialized by a marker at the foot of the front steps of the church. A Union chaplain, the Reverend Horatio Howell, was slow to surrender and was shot dead by a Confederate soldier as he stepped onto the porch after ministering to the wounded inside the church. Today Christ Church stands in the town’s historic district and is a designated stop on the “Historic Pathway” being planned by a coalition of groups, including the National Park Service. The building is little changed from its original appearance. Christ Lutheran Church now serves a broad Gettysburg constituency and is a vibrant congregation of nearly 500 baptized members with a full program of worship, Christian education and outreach, together with a number of programs to serve the community both in its historic tourist-serving tasks and its ministry to contemporary needs. |