What We Believe

St. Matthew was organized as a Lutheran congregation in 1832 and has been a joyful and hope-filled presence in Martinsburg in the Morrisons Cove area of Central Pennsylvania ever since. The following are our core beliefs:

• We confess the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
• We read the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith, and life.
• We confess the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true explanations of our faith, consistent with the tradition of the early Christian church.
• We affirm the historical writings of the Lutheran tradition (the Book of Concord, the Augsburg Confession, Martin Luther’s Small and Large Catechism).
• As a church of the Allegheny Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we engage in the consideration of contemporary matters of faith and society in light of the theological work of the ELCA (see elca.org for more information).