149-year-old Bethel church closes
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SENTINEL PHOTO - The Bethel Primitive Methodist Church at Oak and Jardin Streets on June 16, 2019.
By Kaylee Lindenmuth | [email protected]
SHENANDOAH – A Shenandoah church nearly as old as the borough itself has closed for good.
The Bethel Primitive Methodist Church was formed in 1870 in Shenandoah, holding services at various halls in the borough before building a church in 1874 at the corner of Oak and Jardin Streets.
On June 2, the congregation held its final service. The Schuylkill District of the Primitive Methodist Church ordered the church, which had around 20 members, closed.The church is no longer listed under the Schuylkill District section of the Primitive Methodist Church’s website, though, according to Internet Archive’s most recent archive of the page on October 14, 2018, the church was present.
Bethel is the latest in a multitude of church closures which have occurred in the past decade in the borough. In 2011, the First Baptist Church at Oak and West Streets closed, and in 2014, the Holy Ghost Polish National Church at Chestnut and Mount Vernon Streets shut its doors as well. That same year, the borough’s Roman Catholic parishes, plus St. Mary Magdalene in Lost Creek, merged into Divine Mercy Parish, using the Annunciation and St. Casimir buildings. Two years later, the Bethany First United Methodist Church at Oak and White Streets closed its doors as well.
As for Bethel and its building, its fate is up to the Schuylkill District. Some of the closed churches have been acquired by other denominations, continuing to be used as churches, others have remained empty and vacant.
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