Lovely Lane Methodist Church

Known as the "Mother Church of American Methodism," Lovely Lane Methodist Church in Baltimore was founded in a simple meeting house in 1784. The present Romanesque-style church, built to commemorate the centennial of the event, was constructed in 1882.

The Lovely Lane congregation originally met in the Lovely Lane Meeting House in Baltimore, which was built in 1774.

In December 1784, the Lovely Lane Meeting House hosted an important meeting of Methodist preachers (the "Christmas Conference"), which resulted in the founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

The Lovely Lane congregation moved to nearby Light Street in 1786. Unfortunately the original church no longer stands; the site (at 206 E Redwood St.) is now occupied by the Baltimore International College.

The present building that houses the Lovely Lane Methodist Church was designed by Stanford White in 1882 as a Centennial Monument to the founding of American Methodism. By the mid-1970s, the church had fallen into disrepair and the turn-of-the-century heating and electrical systems had become inadequate. A large-scale renovation was undertaken in the 1980s to fix the problems and modernize the church.

The unique design of Lovely Lane Methodist Church is inspired in part by the great Byzantine-Romanesque basilicas of Ravenna, Italy. Its remarkable tower, patterned after that of Pomposa Abbey in Italy, stands 225 feet and is topped with a conical tiled roof.

Inside, an oval sanctuary seats 1,000 people and a chapelseats 500. The walls are decorated with rich painted colors (red in the sanctuary; blue and gold in the chapel) and stained glass windows by Louis C. Tiffany and Francis Lathrop. The great vault is painted with a depiction of the sky exactly as it appeared at 3:00 a.m. the day of the church's dedication, with all the major stars and planets in their proper positions.