‘Bittersweet for everybody.’ Growing State College-area church buys Bellefonte church founded in 1800
A more than 220-year-old Bellefonte church that hosted its final service Christmas Eve was bought Tuesday by a growing State College-area church that hopes to breathe new life into the atrophied building.
Oakwood Presbyterian Church purchased the First Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte for $30,000, Centre County property records showed.
“Admittedly, we kind of tripped over this building because we had no intention on building a church and then planting a church. That typically is not how a church is planted,” Oakwood Presbyterian Pastor Owen Hughes wrote in an email. “But we saw the opportunity to purchase First Presbyterian as God providing for our church in order to facilitate the planting of a church, which seems a bit backwards to us, but many times that is how God works.”
The First Presbyterian Church, 203 N. Spring St., was one of the oldest churches in Centre County until it closed. It was established in 1800 by the same men who founded Bellefonte five years prior.
Two former Pennsylvania governors were members and the current structure was built shortly after the Civil War, a time when there were only 16 states. The church closed after more than two centuries of worship because of declining membership and attendance.
Membership and attendance was steadily declining for years, retired certified lay pastor and elder Candace Dannaker said, but the coronavirus pandemic was “the final blow.”
Dannaker, a member of the church for more than 30 years, said she was “delighted” the building would continue to be used as a church.
“The emotions are in tandem with any chapter you close in your life or in the events of a community,” Dannaker said. “It’s bittersweet for everybody.”
Discussions among Oakwood’s leadership group about planting a church had been ongoing for several years, Hughes wrote, but began in earnest in the final months of last year as First Presbyterian’s closing became public.
The church will change denominations. It will be under the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America, rather than the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). The name, Hughes wrote, will remain “for the time being.”
An architectural firm estimated the 15,000-square-foot church would need about $2.5 million in repairs during the next decade, including more than $500,000 in the next five years, according to the church’s website.
Neither a timeline for the renovations nor a date for the first service with a new congregation has been finalized, Hughes said.
“Our goal in planting a church in Bellefonte is to serve the community and to share the Good News of Jesus,” Hughes wrote. “We believe we are placed in Bellefonte by God to love and serve our neighbors through being hospitable and showing compassion.”
