Philadelphia's crumbling churches: Photographer has used his beautiful pictures of abandoned buildings to raise over $45,000 for restoration projects
Abandoned and crumbling, these derelict churches are a reflection of the long, slow decline of a once-great city.
They are all located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city where modern America was born, but which for the past 40 years has slowly been paling from its former glory.
The photographs were taken by Matthew Christopher, a photographer and lecturer who works in the city, who has raised more than $45,000 towards maintenance and preservation of endangered sites through his photography workshops.
St. Bonaventure Roman Catholic Church: This stunning ruin is one of Philadelphia's many crumbling churches
Another view of St. Bonaventure: The derelict houses of worship reflect the long, slow decline of Philadelphia over the past 40 years
A view down the nave of St. Bonaventure shows how it has been smashed at the transept, with the choir totally destroyed, during its demolition
Pews peer out at a grey sky over the Pennsylvania city: The pictures were taken by local photographer Matthew Christopher
The demolition of St Bonaventure marks the loss of another of Philadelphia's churches, after consolidations and closures left the city with a glut of houses of worship
Mr Christopher said that because of Philadelphia's many church consolidations and closures it provides the perfect location to shoot America's decaying wonders.
'In order to find the churches, I do quite a bit of research, networking and partnering with preservation groups, property owners and so forth,' he said.
'It helps when people see over time that I'm not going to belittle their faith or take advantage of their trust and that I'm not interested in using my work to harm the buildings or the people who have been kind enough to allow me access to them.
'Unlike almost any other style of buildings, churches are purely a form of art - by their very nature designed to make you look upward and consider greater things than your day to day troubles.
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'Most other buildings have elements of form, but function is the end goal - a factory needs to produce things, a school needs to make it simple to find and attend classes.
'In a church, the form is the function. You're surrounded by beautiful windows casting colored light, intricately carved altars, hearing hymns that are centuries old. That sense of timelessness and connection to the divine is why they exist.
'In the U.S. they were often founded by immigrant craftspeople with trade skills and materials that no longer exist. So in many ways they're very unique repositories for an area's heritage.'
The Church of the Transfiguration lies eerily empty but in good shape, having weathered the years rather better than St Bonaventura
The stoup in the Church of the Transfiguration is dry and empty, and the floor around it covered in plaster dust
The doors are locked shut, and the central aisle littered with old detritus, in this view of the exit to the Church of the Transfiguration
The vast empty space of the Church of the Transfiguration shows walls and ceilings fading with age and riddled with damp
These seats, which would once have been filled with hymn-singing worshippers, lie empty and gather dust in a gloomier corner of the Church of the Transfiguration
A shaft of light pierces the still air inside the church as it emanates from a window nest to a spiral staircase leading to a higher level
Windows smashed, pews reduced to splinters and damp slowly suffusing its walls, St Boniface Church is a sorry shadow of how it might have looked in its hey day
The remains of an old heating system lies decaying in a hidden space behind a window of St Boniface
A double keyboard stands alone, surrounded by splintered wood, the only remnants of the once-great organ in the Church of the Assumption
Moss springs from the shards of splintered plaster and and rubble in the floor of this church in an undisclosed location
Light streams through the broken roof of this abandoned church, and any parishioners who could have donated to fix it have long gone
Mr Christopher's fascination with abandoned spaces started when he was a child. He enjoyed looking at artwork set in buildings that have since decayed.
His fascination with churches stemmed from this genre of art, as many painters in the late 1700s and early 1800s would paint churches and abbeys, closed under Henry VIII.
Later this year a book named 'Abandoned America: The Age of Consequence' will be released documenting some of the most spectacular ruins, including Mr Christopher's church pictures.
You can see more of his spectacular photographs on his website, Abandoned America, and its related Facebook page.
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