F E L -  First English Lutheran Church…Where Faith Enters Life

About Us

First English Lutheran Church is an urban congregation in a hard neighborhood working to do effective life-giving ministry to a culturally diverse and often culturally impoverished population. FEL is also a significant remnant of the grand history of James Street when it was the premier residential corridor into the city of Syracuse. Most of those fine residences have seen the wrecking ball in the nearly 90 years we’ve occupied the corner of James and Townsend Street.

 

Our building, the last church designed by Archimedes Russell and perhaps, to a great degree, by his draftsman/associate Melvin King, is unique in the catalog of Russell-designed edifices. Where Russell worked almost exclusively in the Gothic and Romanesque Revival idioms, FEL is an imposing Ohio sandstone structure with a  red tile roof in the Mission style, filled with some of the Haskins Art Glass Factory’s finest examples of late-Victorian opalescent drapery glass.

 

The congregation, as a result of a generous bequest has in the past ten years poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into roof repair, handicap accessibility and drainage installation in the parking lot. In 1996 and 1997, the congregation undertook the restoration of almost all of our stained glass. As a result of our listing on the National Register of Historic Places, we obtained a grant from New York State to assist us with Phase I of a major restoration project – more roof work, gutter repair, and the repair of our elegant James Street entrance. As we complete that work, we will re-apply for additional funding to do even more.

 

On the inside, our sanctuary remains much the same as it was at the 1911 dedication, though new carpet, light and sound go a long way toward adding to the comfort of our worshipping community.

 

Our hopes are, in listing this fine structure in the State and National Registers of Historic Places:

             To broaden the circle of involvement, assistance and expertise in restoring our grand              building and its treasury of windows.

             To put us in on-going communication with preservation specialists and potential              funding sources

             To impact our neighbors in a way that brings beauty to their lives, fosters pride and              increasing awareness of our shared history, and may even present opportunities for              tours by school children who’s interest in the history of Syracuse’s art and              architecture can be fostered by discovering just one building, right around the from              their homes and schools.

 

Fast Facts about FEL

 

There are 10,585 congregations in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). We’re one of them.

 

We are the only downtown Lutheran church in Syracuse, though the Syracuse Downtown Committee draws the line on the other side of Townsend Street, we think of ourselves as the downtown church.

 

When we moved here (the corner of James & Townsend) in 1910, it was like moving from the city to the suburbs. Now, we are in the city for good.

 

We began in 1879, meeting in homes, the old court house, and eventually in a church building we bought from another congregation on the site of today’s Galleries on South Salina Street.

 

When we dedicated this building in 1911, we were debt free. We still are.

 

Our M.P. Moeller organ was installed in 1924 and has 28 ranks. The new keyboard was added in 1976. It has three manuals. The swell division is nested in the choir loft, the great, choir and pedal divisions are high above the altar.