How We Came to Be
First English Evangelical Lutheran Church was born on January 15, 1837, as the first English-speaking Lutheran congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains. The Reverend J.C.F. Heyer was the first pastor of the congregation. Father Heyer was also the first American Lutheran pastor to become a missionary; he served in the Andhra region of India. Other notable pastors of First Church’s past were the Reverend Dr. William A. Passavant, founder of The Pittsburgh Synod of 1845 and father of Lutheran social ministries; and the Reverend Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth, Lutheran confessional scholar, who later became professor of Dogmatic Theology at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and Vice Provost of the University of Pennsylvania.
The present church building was dedicated in 1888. In recent years the facility has been extensively renovated and lovingly restored. It serves as a magnificent visible witness to the Gospel of Christ in the very heart of Pittsburgh.