Church History
St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, founded in the decade after the Civil War as a Sunday school “for colored children.” It was three young sisters at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Annapolis, Bessie, Adelle and Kate Randall, who started that Sunday school and within a year there were 175 children attending regularly according to church records.
Three years later, Rev. Cleland Nelson, who had resigned as rector at St. Anne’s to become president of St. John’s College, and Rev. William Scott Southgate, then the rector at St. Anne’s, were holding services for a growing congregation of “colored people” by the end of 1882.
The congregation met in at least two different chapels in Annapolis until 1887 when members bought buildings on Northwest Street, less than a block from St. Anne’s, At the same time Rev. Joshua B. Massiah was appointed vicar—in the Episcopal church that’s a priest in charge of a chapel—the first Black clergy person in that post and his work was confined to St. Philip’s.
In 1908, St. Philip’s separated from St. Anne’s, no longer a “colored mission,” but a chapel of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. In 1928, the Rev. David Croll became the vicar of St. Philip’s.
The original fellowship hall was torn down in the late 1940s and a new one opened in 1951 with a basketball court, a place for teas and student study groups and Friday night teen dances.
By the mid-1960s, Anne Arundel County bought the site that housed St. Philip’s in 1967 to build the Arundel Center, the seat of county government, and a parking garage. The new church opened for worship services in 1970 and a year later Rev. Robert M. Powell was appointed vicar and in 1997 became its first rector, serving until his retirement in 1997.
Rev. Sam Edelman served as interim rector from 1997 to 1999, years that saw the first of St. Philip’s annual crab feasts and the beginning of the construction of the Family Life Center, now known as the Great Hall, addition to the church.
Rev. Angela Shepherd took over in September 1999, the parish’s first and so far, only female rector. She oversaw the completion of the Great Hall, and the establishment of the St. Philip’s Family Life Center, Inc., a 501c3 created to develop programs aimed at addressing socioeconomic problems in the Annapolis area.
Ten years later, Rev. Eugene Sutton, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, brought Rev. Shepherd on as his Canon for Mission and St. Philips went through two years of transition before choosing Rev Randy Callender. Rev. Callender, a champion of social issues, led the church into the Black Lives Matter movement and helped establish a winter relief program for people experiencing homelessness and a food pantry.
St. Philip’s became part of Anne Arundel Acting Together (ACT), and the Racial Reconciliation Commission, both interfaith groups working to end racism.
Once again, Bishop Sutton has called our rector to join his staff and St. Philip’s is again in a state of transition, searching for a new rector, but with a congregation that remains committed to living its faith and embracing the future.