Editing Gloria Dei Church (section)

== Origins and Construction ==

The congregation of Gloria Dei traces its origins to the Swedish Lutheran churches established in [[New Sweden]] during the 1640s, including the first Lutheran church in North America at [[Tinicum Island]]. When the Swedish colony was conquered by the Dutch in 1655, and subsequently by the English in 1664, the Swedish and Finnish settlers remained in the region and maintained their Lutheran faith. By the 1690s, the growing Swedish community along the Delaware River required a substantial new church building. The site selected was in the area then known as Wicaco, a [[Lenape People|Lenape]] place name, in what is now Queen Village. Construction began in 1698 under the supervision of Swedish-trained carpenters, using locally fired bricks in a design influenced by Swedish church architecture.<ref name="gloriadei">{{cite web |url=https://old-swedes.org/history/ |title=Our History |publisher=Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church |access-date=December 29, 2025}}</ref>

The church was completed in 1700 and consecrated as Gloria Dei, Latin for "Glory of God," reflecting the formal ecclesiastical language of the era. The building is a modest brick structure in the late medieval Swedish style, featuring a steeply pitched roof, small windows, and a square bell tower added later. The interior follows a traditional Lutheran plan with a central pulpit emphasizing the preaching of the Word, wooden pews, and galleries along the sides. The church's construction predates the widespread adoption of Georgian architectural styles in colonial America, giving it a distinctly pre-Georgian character that reflects its Swedish origins rather than English colonial fashion.<ref name="tinkcom">{{cite book |last=Tinkcom |first=Harry M. |title=Historic Germantown: From the Founding to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century |year=1955 |publisher=American Philosophical Society |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>