Members of the Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church gathered for a candlelight vigil last month as part of their ongoing efforts to reopen their place of worship.
Congregation members, friends and family gathered outside of the Walton Avenue church in late July to hand out informational flyers to passersby, join together in prayer and strategize next steps — including possibly taking legal action — to regain access to their church which abruptly closed in June.
Patricia Jewett, a member of the Fordham church council and an attendee of the church since 2000, spearheads the current restoration efforts. She told the Bronx Times that the congregation plans to retain legal representation moving forward.
For more than 100 years, the church has served the Fordham community, bringing in members who have remained with the institute for decades. But the church community was shut out — literally — on June 11, when the congregation arrived to locked doors for their usual 11 a.m. Sunday Mass.
They received no warning of the imminent closure, churchgoers told the Bronx Times.
The Fordham Lutheran Church governs itself with an in-house constitution, but ultimately answers to the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — which operates roughly 190 congregations in the city.
In a resolution issued June 10, the synod council announced that it had voted to “impose synodical administration/preservation” over the church. The resolution cites dwindling membership and resources as factors that add “to the impracticability of the congregation to fulfill the purposes for which it was organized.”
“Throughout the years, we have provided financial and pastoral support to the Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church — but we have come to the inevitable conclusion that administrative hurdles and insurance concerns mandate that we cease funding for the church,” a spokesperson from the Metropolitan New York Synod’s office told the Bronx Times in a previous interview.
Faye Nottage, a church council member, feels blindsided by the sudden closure. A member of the congregation for 38 years, Nottage worked as a deaconess, serving communion and performing pastoral duties like leading prayer.
“I was upset, not because the church was going to close, but because of the way they locked down the church without telling the church council,” Nottage told the Bronx Times.
The church council was aware of the synod’s resolution, but received no advanced notice that the doors would be shuttered immediately.
The letter announcing the church’s closure details that the congregation may attempt to appeal the synod’s decision within 45 days. The appeal process requires that the church’s congregation hold a “properly called and convened” meeting with a member of the Office of the Bishop present.
On two separate occasions, Jewett wrote to church council president Emilie Ramdhanie and the synod requesting a “Special Congregation Meeting.” Special meetings are held “by the president of the congregation upon the written request of 10% of the voting members,” per the church’s own constitution.
Both of Jewett’s letters had more than 15 signatures — roughly 50% of the congregation.
The deadline to begin the appeal process was July 25 and Jewett told the Bronx Times she has yet to receive a reply.
She has also attempted to reach the church’s new trustees, who include bishop’s assistants Revs. Gladys Diaz and Branden Dupree as well as other synod officials. No one has responded to her emails, she said.
Neither Diaz or Dupree responded to a request for comment from the Bronx Times.
On July 24, congregation members traveled to the synod’s Manhattan office, hoping to speak with officials. Jewett said security at the building claimed they would hand deliver the church’s letters to a member of the Council of Churches of the City of New York.
Officials from the synod previously told the Bronx Times that they still are “fully prepared” to provide pastoral care, and said other congregations in the area are ready to welcome devoted churchgoers to its pews.
But Romney Perez, a pastor for the nearby Fordham Community Church, empathized with the congregants of the Fordham Lutheran Church and what they’ve gone through in recent months.
“They built it up, and now, all of a sudden, they can’t even get into their own church. The neighborhood feels confused and feels like there’s an element of something stolen from them,” he said.
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