St. Stephen's Cathedral in downtown Portland
Operation Nightwatch Portland (ex St. Stephen's Episcopal Church)
1432 SW 13th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97201
On February 1, 2025, St. Stephen's Episcopal Parish, a long-time fixture of downtown Portland's West End, closed its doors after 161 years of its history. For many, the church has been better known as the home of Operation Nightwatch Portland, and to some, as the host to the Portland Bicycle Shrine.
This small building was once the seat of the Episcopal Bishop of Oregon, and a faded plaque that reads "St. Stephen's Cathedral, Episcopal" is still seen on its exterior wall.
The building, originally meant to be a temporary structure following a series of arsons, held its first service on September 14, 1930. Designated pro-cathedral by the Rt. Rev. Charles Scadding, the third Bishop of Oregon, the former building was burned down in 1924. During the ensuing years, the pro-cathedral parish held services at other nearby churches and even discussed a merger with Trinity Episcopal Parish in Northwest Portland. The diocesan convention of 1929, however, voted to designate St. Stephen's as its cathedral, that is, the seat of the Bishop of Oregon.
St. Stephen's remained the center of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon until 1973, when the diocese relocated its cathedral functions to the chapel of Oregon Episcopal School, which was in turn organized as the Cathedral Parish of St. John the Baptist.
In 1993, the diocese designated Trinity Episcopal Parish as its cathedral, where it remains to this day.
St. Stephen's was the first Episcopal parish in Oregon to offer Holy Eucharist services to Blacks (in September of 1911), which ultimately evolved into St. Phillip the Deacon parish in North Portland (across the street from Matt Dishman Community Center), the first historically Black parish in the Diocese of Oregon. The parish also made history when, in the years following the end of World War II, it welcomed the Japanese-American community returning from concentration camps, and during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, as a haven for local gays and lesbians seeking an accepting congregation.
St. Stephen's also had a long history of working with local nonprofits. Operation Nightwatch Portland has been welcomed into its basement since November 2010, when First Presbyterian Church evicted Operation Nightwatch from Julia West House (which, at the time, was an old two-story house that First Pres owned and used for its social service programs; now that house was demolished and an apartment complex bearing the same name stands), a few blocks to the north, following some philosophical disagreements between Nightwatch's then-executive director, Gary L. Davis, and First Presbyterian's then-homeless program chief Marvin Mitchell.
Other nonprofits that once called St. Stephen's home include Clay Street Table, HOME PDX, and Journey-Koinonia Catholic Community.
In November of 2024, the Rt. Rev. Diana Akiyama, the eleventh Bishop of Oregon, ordered St. Stephen's parish to terminate its ministries by no later than February 1, 2025, while also leaving open the option of continuing as a "mission" rather than a parish. That year, the land and building were sold to Operation Nightwatch Portland, where it continues to operate, while a separate organization called Agape Village now runs an overnight shelter for women.
Once a large and vibrant downtown church, St. Stephen's only had about 15 regular attendees by 2023, a combination of post-COVID trends that affected virtually every church, and the exodus of people and businesses from Portland's downtown core amidst the rise in crimes during the pandemic years.
The angel wings mural over the door to the basement was designed and painted by Vancouver, Washington, artist Sharon Warman Agnor.
Notes:
- Veronica Nocera. "Historic downtown parish prepares for its last Christmas: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, which has a long legacy of social justice, will host its final round of services before closing Feb. 1." Oregonian, The (Portland, OR), OR1M Main ed., sec. A, 24 Dec. 2024, p. 001. NewsBank: Access World News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=AWNB&req_dat=0F4628B64EE57D2A&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/19DAA357E09FAF40. Accessed 30 Aug. 2025.
- Barnard Stadius. "The History St. Stephen's Cathedral 1863-1952" web.archive.org/web/20050119152540/http://www.stst.org/stephen/historyl.html
- Tom Hallman. "Church tells homeless hangout to move along." Oregonian, The (Portland, OR), Sunrise ed., sec. Metro Portland Neighbors: In Portland, 16 Oct. 2010. NewsBank: Access World News, infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=AWNB&req_dat=0F4628B64EE57D2A&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews/132EA785DFE3F0C0. Accessed 30 Aug. 2025.
- “A Short History of The Parish of St. John The Baptist.” St John the Baptist, web.archive.org/web/20081030035736/st-john-the-baptist.org/history.htm. Accessed 30 Aug. 2025.
- Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. "Detailed history of ECWO." Episcopal Church in Western Oregon, ecwo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ECWO-History-Archived.pdf. Accessed 30 Aug 2025.
Comments
Post a Comment