Time capsule helps Diocese of Susquehanna church celebrate 200 years in historic building

[Episcopal News Service] Christ Episcopal Church in Reading, Pennsylvania, had a lot of church history tucked literally inside its walls — a time capsule from 1863, the be exact, which was retrieved for unveiling last weekend at the church’s bicentennial celebration.

In addition to some very old coins, it mostly contained church documents from early in the building’s 200-year history. Some documents — newspaper clippings, historic church annuals, diocesan journals, a copy of the diocese’s constitution and canons — were so brittle that they couldn’t be put on public display, though the congregation produced a video of them that was shown as part of the weekend’s festivities.

During Holy Eucharist at Christ Church on May 10, the Rev. Bryce Wandrey, the rector, described the bicentennial as “not only a celebration of our past, but a day of inspiration for our present and a hope for our future.”

“We have been here for a long time,” he said, “and guess what: We plan on being here for a very long time to come.”

The congregation dates to the 1763, when it was founded as a colonial-era mission church. By the time the church building was completed in 1826, the congregation was part of the historic Diocese of Pennsylvania. It later became part of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania and then the Diocese of Bethlehem through diocesan divisions, authorized respectively in 1871 and 1904. More recently, Central Pennsylvania and Bethlehem reunited to become the Diocese of the Susquehanna, effective January 2026.

Some of those twists and turns in diocesan history were personified May 9 by the diocesan leaders who helped the congregation celebrate the bicentennial. The church’s festivities featured a reconsecration of the building by Pennsylvania Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez, mirroring the original consecration in 1826 by Bishop William White, the first bishop of Pennsylvania.

Then on May 10, Gutiérrez preached during the Sunday Eucharist. The celebrant was the Rt. Rev. Kevin Nichols, former bishop of Bethlehem, who now serves as assistant bishop of the Diocese of the Susquehanna.

“How meaningful it is to share this special day with you,” Gutiérrez said, and he referred back to that day 200 years ago when White celebrated with an earlier generation of Episcopalians in Reading. “With sacred imagination they dared to see what had not yet been seen. Through prayer woven with perseverance, they raised these stones, these beams,” he said. “Together we gather as living echoes of their hope, witnesses to Christ’s enduring presence.”

As the congregation celebrates 200 years in its church building, however, it isn’t interested in turning the church into a museum, Wandrey told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview. “We are definitely here to celebrate those that have gone before us, what they have done, what they have done for this city,” Wandrey said. “But this [building] is not all that we’re about.”

Parishioners, in addition to preserving the church’s rich history, also are focused on the important work, now and in the future, of connecting the church with its community, Wandrey said. He mentioned activities the church hosts, like English literacy classes, citizenship classes and addiction support groups. Community activities keep Christ Church full of life every day of the week, in addition to the Sunday services that typically draw about 100 worshippers.

“Our history is great. Our present is amazing. And our future is full of hope,” Wandrey said.

He leads a congregation of about 200 members, with Sunday attendance typically about 100 worshipers. For a modest-sized congregation, maintaining a 200-year-old building is no simple task, and it can be expensive.

The most recent example of that cost was a major plaster rehabilitation project. When pieces of plaster began breaking off the ceiling and falling to the floor of the nave in September 2024, the congregation halted services there while inspectors determined the extent of the problem and suggested remedies.

Christ Church worshiped in the fellowship hall for several months until it was deemed safe to return to the main space. Services moved back into the fellowship hall in November 2025 when the repair and rehabilitation project began, at a cost of about $1 million. Then in April, Wandrey got word it was safe to move back into the nave, just in time to celebrate Easter there.

“Our building is amazing,” he said, “and it’s great being back in it.”

The time capsule, too, is both a throwback to the church’s history and an emblem of the structure’s physical evolution. In the church building’s first few decades, it was enlarged and enhanced through a series of construction projects, culminating in 1863 with the completion of the 200-foot spire and steeple.

That was where the time capsule was found, behind an odd-colored stone that clearly was not meant to match the others supporting the steeple. The stone also was not easy to remove, but the company hired for the plaster project also agreed to cut a delicate slice into the masonry and, with a special camera, confirmed the presence of the capsule. Additional precision cuts allowed for the removal of the stone to retrieve the time capsule.

Among the centuries-old coins found inside the capsule was one that initially seemed like a treasure of unbelievable value — a particularly rare 1804 silver dollar that could have been worth millions. Wandrey said that the congregation eventually determined it was from 1803, not as valuable but still an exciting discovery.

The stone was replaced, without replacing the capsule. Its contents will be preserved in more easily accessible ways for future generations, possibly in collaboration with the Berks History Center, a historical museum in Reading. The city of about 95,000 people is the seat of Berks County, located about an hour northwest of Philadelphia.

With the bicentennial celebration behind it, Wandrey said Christ Church is looking to live into its forward-looking mission statement: “In the city. With our neighbors. For everyone.”

The church building is a part of that mission, though if the congregation is successful, it will be “because the people who come here are making people’s lives better around us,” he said.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.