Bishop White favored the "middle way" – a balance between individual piety and shared ritual, between parish autonomy and centralized leadership.

New congregations appeared almost overnight in suburbs like Newtown Square (St. Alban's, 1922), Gladwyne (St. Christopher's, 1949), Levittown (St. Paul's, 1953), and Maple Glen (St. Matthews, 1967).

Absalom Jones, the founder with Richard Allen of the Free African Society in 1787, organized Saint Thomas, the first independent black church in America, in 1794.

All-black congregations were not common in Philadelphia until the city's African American population expanded in the first half of the twentieth century.

By 1980 the parish Jones once led (known today as the African Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas) had become one of the largest (black or white) in the diocese.

[citation needed] Until Robert L. DeWitt (1964–1973) became its twelfth bishop in 1964, the Diocese of Pennsylvania largely ignored the civil rights movement.

Troubled by riots in Philadelphia and Chester, he supported an ecumenical effort to desegregate Girard College, a boarding school for orphan boys that bore the name of its nineteenth-century benefactor.

[citation needed] During the early 20th Century as the more wealthy population of the diocese was shifting west toward the "Main Line", a project was undertaken to build Cathedral Church of Christ, on Ridge Avenue in the Roxborough section of the city, but construction on the cathedral project was halted decades ago for financial reasons.

A cathedral was also envisioned as part of the Washington Memorial Chapel complex at Valley Forge, but did not get much further than the laying of a cornerstone.

In December 1990, he asked the Cathedral Chapter to consider a number of possible sites but also recommended that the Church of the Saviour in West Philadelphia be chosen.

He gave several reasons: the building's size, its location in a multi-cultural and educational environment, and the fact that it was already a popular site for diocesan events.

The Cathedral interior, now seen at the 19th South 38th Street property in West Philadelphia, replicates the layout of a place of Christian worship in the 5th century.