Membership in the Protestant Episcopal Church is up 4% over last year to 2,643,488, reported the official Living Church Annual last week. Added the Annual, matter-of-factly: the biggest of the denomination's 7,851 congregations is now St. Philip's, in Manhattan's Harlem.*
St. Philip's is a large, solid-looking brick church which stands, jammed close between neighboring houses, on the edge of a slum neighborhood. All but a handful of its 3,707 members are Negroes, about 60% of British West Indies (and thus Anglican) stock. There is nothing dramatic about St. Philip's rise to first place; its growth has been solid and steady under the...
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