Growing Diversity in Religious Affiliations

Although Upper Dublin was founded by Quaker families, and for many years was served by a variety of congregations for its largely Protestant and white population, the influx of Blacks, Catholics, Jews and, most recently, Asian populations has given rise to an increasing diversity of religious affiliations, and their respective houses of worship, as exemplified by the following:

The earliest of these, the 1920s development of a church focused on the Black population, is described in detail elsewhere. INSERT CROSS REFERENCE

Upper Dublin’s first Catholic church, Queen of Peace Parish, was founded in 1954, with a second, St. Alphonsus Parish, founded in 1963. In 2014 the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that St. John of the Cross in Rosyln, Abington Township, was to be merged into Queen of Peace. James Boyle, Fight continues at Abington’s St. John of the Cross, buckscountycouriertimes, July 6, 2014, and that merger appears not to have been completed until 2021. Two parishes set to merge into one, reporteronline, Sept. 24, 2021.

The first evidence of an organized Jewish community in Upper Dublin appears to have been in June 1961 when the Upper Dublin chapter, Gamma Xi, of Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish fraternity for high schoolers, formed (Sigma Alpha Rho, Wikipedia (seen on Feb. 19, 2025).

The first Jewish congregation, Temple Sinai, moved to Upper Dublin in 1979 (marked by the lengthy tenure of Rabbi Sidney Greenberg). Later Beth Or synagogue moved from Pennlyn to Maple Glen, and a Reconstructionist congregation, Or Hadash, was founded and a Chabad congregation, Chabad Lubavitch, were both organized in Fort Washington. In 2025, an Upper Dublin Jewish Families Association was formed, apparently in response to concerns about antisemitism.

There is a Chinese congregation, Peace Valley Chinese Christian Church, in Fort Washington.

Mar Thoma is one of the American congregations of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church in India.

There are three Korean churches: Philadelphia Korean Methodist Church, Nakwon Presbyterian and Willow Grove Korean Reformed.