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Founded in 1866 as the first Polish parish in Milwaukee (and, perhaps, the first urban Polish church in the United States), St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr served as “the mother church for more than twenty Polish parishes” across the area. A towering, twin-spire church topped by golden domes arose at 5th and Mitchell Street in… Read More

Standing at the corner of North 9th Street and West Highland Avenue in downtown Milwaukee, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church has been called the “Mother Church of Missouri Synod Lutheranism” in Milwaukee. Designed by German immigrant Frederick Velguth for Milwaukee’s oldest German Lutheran congregation, the Victorian Gothic structure, completed in 1880, is recognized as a municipal… Read More

Unitarianism in Milwaukee dates to 1842 when a contingent of liberal Christians gathered to hear a visiting preacher and proceeded to form the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee. Approximately forty members began meeting in the old city courthouse, and soon erected a church and secured a permanent minister from Massachusetts. As liberal Protestants who privileged… Read More

The United Church of Christ (UCC), founded in 1957, and its predecessor denominations can trace their history to the earliest settlement of greater Milwaukee. The UCC is a twentieth century union of four American Protestant churches: Congregational, Christian, German Evangelical Synod, and German Reformed. Congregational, German Evangelical Synod, and German Reformed congregations gathered in this… Read More

Wiccans, some of whom self-identify as witches, and other Pagans are a small but growing presence within the United States. Many Wiccans practice their faith individually or in small groups. Although estimates of the number of Wiccans are unreliable, a 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that roughly 0.3% of Americans identified as Wiccans or… Read More