History
The original Presbytery of Ohio was organized in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 14, 1936. Dr. J. Gresham Machen was present and addressed the group on the subject “Evangelism—False and True.”
About twenty people were present, and four ministers were enrolled in the new presbytery: Carl A. Ahlfeldt of Indianapolis, Everett C. DeVelde of Cincinnati, Thomas H. Mitchell of Youngstown, and J. Lyle Shaw of Cleveland. At that organizing meeting the following Presbyterian congregations affiliated with the new presbytery: First Church of Cincinnati, Ohio, and its Trinity Chapel of Newport, Kentucky; Covenant Church of Indianapolis, Indiana; Providence Church of Youngstown, Ohio; Covenant Church of Marion, Ohio; and Grace Church of Buechel, Kentucky. The name Ohio was natural for the new presbytery since that state was the center of activity.
The first congregations of the OPC in western Pennsylvania were included in the Presbytery of Philadelphia. These works included Branchton, Harrisville, Pittsburgh, and Grove City churches. On June 8, 1951, the Presbytery of Ohio was reorganized, and the western Pennsylvania churches were grafted in.
Each of our churches has begun with a small core group of believers committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God and to the Westminster Standards. Facing hostility from liberal churches and misunderstanding from fundamentalists, they have survived to be living monuments to God’s sovereign grace. Today the Presbytery of Ohio consists of 18 particular churches and 4 mission churches within the bounds of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania.
Who We Are
We are a Presbytery of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which was founded on June 11, 1936, in the aftermath of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, under the leadership of J. Gresham Machen (longtime professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, who also founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929). With the infiltration of theological liberalism, the mainline Presbyterian Church in the USA had departed from historic Christianity, including the rejection of doctrines such as the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, and the substitutionary atonement. Originally calling itself the Presbyterian Church of America, the young church was forced by the threat of a lawsuit to change its name in 1939, and it adopted the name Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
In nearly eight decades since its founding, the OPC has slowly grown to over 30,000 members in over 300 churches throughout the United States in Canada. It has been vigorous in its defense and propagation of the historic Reformed faith as expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. The church’s efforts in worldwide outreach are conducted largely through three denominational standing committees: foreign missions, home missions and church extension, and Christian education. The OPC recognizes other churches of like faith and practice and is a member of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) and the International Conference of Reformed Churches (ICRC).