This week in Christian history: Largest SBC meeting, AME Church founder ordained

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Twitter

Richard Allen ordained – June 11, 1799

Richard Allen (1760-1831), founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Richard Allen (1760-1831), founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Richard Allen, a former slave who went on to found the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Born in 1760, Allen had become a Methodist as a teenager, partly because of the denomination's official opposition to slavery. However, he still experienced prejudice in the Methodist Church.

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Allen eventually founded the AME Church in 1816 and helped establish Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a congregation that still meets in the modern day.

In 2016, 200 years after he founded the AME Church, Allen was honored by the U.S. Postal Service with an official stamp, with the USPS saying in a statement at the time that Allen's "life — a legacy of determination, uplift, charity and faith — remains an inspiration to all Americans."

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