Religion and faith in Butler County today
This article is one in a series of articles about what life looks like in Butler County ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. Stories in this series aim to showcase what it’s like to live, work, play and serve in Butler County during this moment in history.
Take a walk along Main Street Butler, and you’ll find houses of worship the most common feature of the city’s landscape.
These local institutions have stood tall and welcomed residents, even as churchgoers have dwindled in numbers in recent years. Polling from different organizations has shown declines in church attendance among most religious groups over the past two decades. As a whole, less than a quarter of U.S. adults attend religious services every week.
Yet throughout present-day Butler County, you can find churches, temples, synagogues, houses of worship and other buildings that have continued to serve as a place of community, refuge and guidance while serving local communities.
“We try to be a place where people can feel they belong. We try to be welcoming and accepting. We want everybody to feel they have a place here,” said the Rev. Gregg Jacobs, pastor of Allison Park Church’s Butler campus.
In 2026, there is a diverse range of religious groups that practice their faith in Butler County.
Recognizable are the Catholic churches that dot the city of Butler and other nearby townships. The merger in 2021 of Sts. Peter, Paul, Andrew, Conrad and Michael the Archangel churches to form All Saints Parish has helped maintain a strong presence in the community. Schools like Butler Catholic, Holy Sepulcher, Saint Kilian, St. Wendelin and others have welcomed and educated our children for generations.
Churches of different denominations in our communities — Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Orthodox, and others — have stood for over 100 years. Many were built by newcomers in waves of immigration in past generations. Most continue to thrive.
For example, Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church was founded in 1922, largely thanks to Ukrainian immigration into the region. Like other Eastern Europeans, new residents started working at steel mills, while relying on the church for food, festivals, dancing, games, Sunday school and other forms of community, the Rev. Yurii Bobko said.
While overall attendance has changed over time — there used to be 100 families that attended the church — families still maintain that sense of belonging, he said.
“As for any community, the work in life is important. But a big part of it is their culture, and their tradition and faith,” Bobko said.
At Congregation B’nai Abraham, a synagogue located in downtown Butler, family attendance spans generations.
The synagogue received its charter in 1903. Roberta Gallagher, a longtime member of the synagogue, recalls a time when over 100 children participated in its Sunday school program in the 1950s and 60s.
Nowadays, Congregation B’nai Abraham has about 25 families, pulling from a region that spans Cranberry to Clarion. It navigates antisemitism in this day and age with a guard at every service. However, it continues to project a mood of love, faith and celebration.
“We have such a vibrant community. For as small as we are, we celebrate every holiday. We celebrate Tu BiShvat, which is the celebration of the trees. We have big celebrations on Sukkot, which is a harvest holiday. And Hanukkah, of course. A lot of holidays are based around food. We love it. And we still have services almost every week,” Gallagher said.
As Butler County has grown in the past several decades, other religious groups have made Butler home, opening their own houses of worship and welcoming growing communities. In Mars, Chinmaya Amarnath, a Hindu temple built by Chinmaya Mission Pittsburgh, opened its doors in the summer of 2022.
And in 2024, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened a Mormon temple in Cranberry — the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple.
With houses of faith and worship old and new scattered throughout Butler County, many attempt to serve their communities through food pantries, fundraising and other efforts.
Allison Park Church will celebrate its 60th anniversary in August. The church has multiple locations, with one in Butler County since 2017. It moved into the former Tanglewood Center building this year. With a “passion for following Jesus’ teachings,” it operates a food bank that serves more than 300 families a month.
“Anyone who is disconnected, disheartened, hurt, rejected, we try to be a place for them,” Jacobs said. “Our values are kindness and generosity.”
