Congregation

They gathered in the shadow of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, Philadelphia's main Catholic church, in an amen chorus of support for nuns. "For Sister Marie Timothy, who assured me I didn't have an attitude problem and that I was a strong woman in the making," said a school nurse. "For Sister Evelyn, who put my feet on the path of demonstrating in Washington in 1972," said a baby boomer. "To Sister Mary Paul, for teaching us the mysteries of sex in middle school!"

Congregants and supporters of First Baptist Church in Glassboro rallied yesterday for a Service of Solidarity, held in the parking lot of the burned church. The church was destroyed by arson May 30. The congregation has been holding services in the A to Z maintenance building on South Delsea Drive and will continue to do so until the church is rebuilt.

Two local synagogues have plans to merge and form a single Conservative congregation that will build on a site on Skippack Pike in Whitpain. The Norristown congregation of Tiferes Israel and the Lansdale congregation of Beth Israel plan to worship together, according to Jay Weiss, a spokesperson of the Norristown Jewish Community Center. Although the congregation does not have a name yet, the synagogue is hoped to be constructed by October 1989, Weiss said. The building that Tiferes Israel used is under an agreement to be bought by the Sacred Heart Hospital and the Suburban General Hospital, Weiss said.

Cinema verit? filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond got more verit? than they bargained for when they set out two years ago to capture life at First United Methodist Church of Germantown. Their two-hour documentary, The Congregation, airs at 9:30 tonight on PBS (Channel 12). The old stone church on Germantown Avenue is a haven of liberal activism at a time when so much of Christianity is tilting to the right. That drew in the Raymonds as an intriguing modern-day story line. The congregation also was in the throes of a difficult transition from a longtime, lionized pastor to his more conventional successor.

Hymnals in hand, members of Kemblesville United Methodist Church entered their new 160-seat church building Sunday after a short walk across Route 896 from the Kemblesville Elementary School. The congregation had been holding worship services in the elementary school since fire destroyed the church's 139-year-old sanctuary and nearby fellowship hall on Oct. 26, 1991. Officials determined that the fires were intentionally set, but no arrests have been made. The church will have an open house from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday to show off the new $825,000 building and its furnishings.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, the new Roman Catholic parish established earlier this year to serve Buckingham Township, soon will have a new worship site. Beginning Oct. 8, the parish's Sunday Masses will be held at Central Bucks East High School, 2804 Holicong Rd., in Buckingham Township. Masses will be held at 8, 10 and 11:30 a.m. The parish's 5:30 p.m. Saturday vigil Mass will continue to be held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, 235 E. State St., in Doylestown. Weekend Masses will be held at those locations until the parish has constructed its own building, said the Rev. Joseph J. Quindlen, pastor of the new congregation.

For the 1,100-member congregation of West Chester's Westminster Presbyterian Church, the time had come to make some hard decisions. The space on South Church Street was cramped, parking was a hassle and the building needed substantial work. Like homeowners everywhere, the congregants had two choices - renovate or move. Then came the offer too good to refuse. James K. Robinson Jr., a longtime member of the church, donated 10 acres for a new complex. The land is prime real estate that has been the envy of developers in the region for years.

Adultery, sin and redemption are on the agenda at the Deerfield Presbyterian Church in Cumberland County today, when the congregation will consider whether to censure Pastor Norman A. Koop and accept his resignation. A church investigation begun earlier this year revealed that Mr. Koop, who is married, had an affair in 1984 with a married congregant. The pastor is the son of former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. In a four-page, single-spaced typed confession delivered to the church leadership on March 5, Mr. Koop admitted committing adultery.

Ruth Stanley holds dear a fir tree outside the Unitarian Fellowship Church in West Chester. When her husband, Harry, died 13 years ago, she planted the tree at their church. In the weeks and months that followed, Stanley made sure the sapling was well-watered. One Christmas Eve, a friend decorated the tree with candles. When her sons visit, they stop by to "see how Daddy's tree is doing. " But now, the Unitarian Fellowship plans to move to Marshallton. That means selling the three-story Victorian on North Franklin Street where the fir tree stands sturdy.

The 1992 Ford Crown Victoria is more than a revised edition of a popular volume. It is a new book on the full-size domestic sedan. The beauty of the new Crown Vic (apart from its aero styling) is that it manages to retain all the comfortable and convenient attributes its aging congregation loves, while reaching out for younger converts with greater sophistication and performance. Yes, it continues to be a big, comfy, rear-drive sedan with room for six, a studio apartment for a trunk and a husky V-8. And it is still built on a true frame, which means that muscular engine can be put to work towing serious boats and trailers.

Wednesday will be a homecoming for Bishop Richard Franklin Norris as he steps, surely to applause, to the podium of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. As pastor in the 1980s of this historic congregation — the "mother" church of the five million-member denomination founded here 218 years ago — Norris restored the landmark building and transformed a haphazard collection of memorabilia into an important African American museum and tourist destination. "I think that may be my proudest accomplishment," he said in an interview.

Rabbi J. Harold Romirowsky, 90, of Merion, who as the longtime leader of the former Oxford Circle Jewish Community Centre-Brith Israel transformed a small synagogue into a thriving hub of Jewish education, worship, and culture, died Saturday of apparent adult respiratory distress syndrome at Lankenau Medical Center in Lower Merion. The Oxford Circle synagogue was only six years old when Rabbi Romirowsky became its leader in 1954. He immediately began going door-to-door. He introduced himself to residents in the neighborhood and invited them to services.

WHEN A SIREN sounded outside the Northeast home of Rabbi J. Harold Romirowsky, he would perk up. A police car, fire truck or emergency vehicle would be on its way to someone in distress. Could it have been one of his congregants? Someone who needed his help? No one was allowed to use his home phone until he felt that the emergency had bypassed one of his flock. Then he could relax. Rabbi Romirowsky, who took a small and loosely organized conservative congregation in the Northeast in the '50s and built it into the Oxford Circle Jewish Community Center, a place not only of worship, but a social gathering center for Jews and non-Jews alike, died Saturday at age 90. He was living in Merion, but spent most of his career living in the Oxford Circle area.

THE REV. VINCENT SMITH was looking at the sky through one of the two gaping holes in the roof of Point Breeze's 19th Street Baptist Church and wondering when he could bring his congregation home. For the past five years, his 100 parishioners have worshipped in an adjoining building, forced to leave their sanctuary - designed by acclaimed architect Frank Furness and built in 1875 - because of the roof and other structural problems. "It can be a little discouraging to some.

For a while, it seemed as if the new year would be anything but happy for the members of St. James Episcopal Church in Prospect Park. The 106-year-old Delaware County congregation was so mired in debt that it couldn't pay its rector. Closing seemed imminent. Just 10 minutes away, in Ridley Township, Leiper Presbyterian Church faced a different challenge: a small, aging membership, with only 30 coming to Sunday services. Leiper, founded in 1818, voted to dissolve, an acknowledgment of hurdles too steep to overcome.

A day after a six-foot menorah was reported missing from a Haddonfield park, the third night of Hanukkah was celebrated as scheduled - with the public lighting of an even bigger menorah. "It's painful," Rabbi Mendel Mangel of Chabad Lubavitch of Cherry Hill said of the apparent theft. But "we are going to respond by adding more good to world," he said. The 18-year-old congregation has placed a menorah at Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street every year for nearly a decade. On Thursday, the congregation lit its new, roughly 10-foot aluminum menorah in the park before more than 50 people.

A day after a six-foot menorah was reported missing from a Haddonfield park, the third night of Hanukkah was celebrated as scheduled - with the public lighting of an even bigger menorah. "It's painful," Rabbi Mendel Mangel, of Chabad Lubavitch of Cherry Hill, said of the apparent theft. But "we are going to respond by adding more good to world," he said. The 18-year-old congregation has placed a menorah at Library Point at Haddon Avenue and Tanner Street every year for nearly a decade.

Rabbi Richard F. Address is recharging his career at an age when many people retire. Address, 66, became senior rabbi of M'kor Shalom in Cherry Hill in July. After 30 years in regional and national leadership positions in the Reform Judaism movement, he's leading a local congregation again, and loving it. "There's nothing I'd rather do," says Address, who succeeds Rabbi Barry Schwartz. "Being a rabbi is the greatest thing in the world. " A proud Philly native and longtime Mantua Township resident, the charismatic, energetic Address says M'kor and its membership of 750 families "took a chance on me. " A chance?

When members of West Philadelphia's Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship dream of retirement living, they envision a place not necessarily known as an Islamic getaway. But 108 acres in southern Chester County could soon become that, depending on which way the legal winds blow across the meadows of East Fallowfield Township. While the 350-member congregation has owned the property for more than two decades, only a small shrine has been built there. Inside rest the remains of the group's eponymous founder, a Sufi Muslim mystic from Sri Lanka who came to Philadelphia in 1971 and stayed until his death in 1986.