A Home for Diverse Faiths : A stroll around Downtown L.A. shows off its ubiquitous houses of worship and reveals cultural richness and ethnic diversity.

Walk east in Los Angeles along First Street on a Sunday morning and you find Japanese Buddhists worshiping in the ornate Nishi Hongwanji Temple, while over in the heart of Olvera Street, Latin rhythms waft from “La Placita,” a well-known sanctuary for people from Central and South America.

To the northeast in Lincoln Heights, Latino and Asian cultures meld, and so do the churches: Primera Iglesia del Nazareno stands next door to the Chinese Assembly of God. And to the west in Angelino Heights stands Bethel Temple, which boasts two “English” pastors plus one Spanish, one Chinese and one Gypsy.

Downtown, stately St. Vibiana Cathedral rises next to rescue missions where a never-ending line of the homeless wait for food and, as dusk approaches, a place on the sidewalk to spend the night in a “cardboard condo.”

These are just a fraction of the more than 50 places of worship I discovered within a short radius of City Hall. I recently moved from the suburbs to a high-rise apartment on the edge of Chinatown. An unexpected benefit has been savoring the city’s cultural richness and ethnic diversity.

What I discovered on a recent Sunday morning walk forms the basis for the first of an occasional series that will examine the scores of religions in the Southland.

The stories will focus on issues, the history of denominations or sects, or profiles of worshipers and clergy. Above all, the articles will seek to capture the heartbeat of faith that makes religion a vital force in Southern California.

As I passed by, the signs on more than a few places of worship gave mute testimony to the changes immigration is making upon the city. Chinese writing on a typical Protestant church with Western-style stained glass windows, for example. A diversity of religions, with a strong Eastern flavor in some neighborhoods, Latino influences in others.

Some religious groups are well-known, others obscure. Many belong to well-established national or international denominations, others are independent or ephemeral.

I wondered who belongs to some of these churches, what problems the members face and how rituals are conducted, say, for Sikhs, Jains and Bahais. . . .

And interspersed among the “standard” Baptists and Lutherans and Catholics, I came upon some--like the Holy Superet Church and Prayer Garden on West 3rd Street--that defy categorization.

At 243 1/2 East 5th street I found the Good News Chapel, a tiny Skid Row storefront crouched behind a folding metal security gate. Inside, transients slouched in semi-darkness. Signs posted in the window announced, “God’s Word is a Treasure,” and “Hugs, not Drugs.”

If this chapel is an example of the minuscule, walking to the corner of Flower and Olympic gives you the mammoth. Here stands First United Methodist Church in a multistory building that also houses the Methodist district offices and such diverse organizations as the Antioch Connection (a religious group for young Koreans) and Jericho Education for Justice (a Catholic lobby group for housing).

Two blocks to the north on Flower is Our Lady Chapel, next to the Catholic Information Center. Downtown workers will also find a Catholic presence and frequent weekday Masses in the bowels of the Arco Towers: Ensconced in a corner of “C” level underground is well-appointed St. Bernardine Chapel.

As the city has changed and populations have shifted, inner-city churches have struggled to adapt and maintain viable congregations. Some haven’t made it.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, long a landmark at Wilshire and Figueroa, fell to the wrecker’s ball in 1980. The congregation moved to the chapel in Good Samaritan Hospital, then merged with historic St. Athanasius and St. Paul Church overlooking Echo Park Lake. That 88-year-old parish has itself moved twice and will be moved again soon to make room for the new Episcopal Diocese headquarters.

The First Evangelical Covenant Church, a 100-year-old congregation originally composed of Swedes who populated what is now Bunker Hill, will disband early next year. Recently the temporary home of the First Korean Methodist Church, First Covenant also spawned a Spanish-language Covenant church that has moved to Bell Gardens.

“We illustrate the plight and the flight of downtown,” declared church worker R. W. Stayboldt.

The Church of the Open Door with its landmark “Jesus Saves” signs is also gone from downtown Hope Street, thriving instead in Glendale.

But while some have moved out, others have stayed on or moved in.

Farther south on Hope Street is feisty R. L. Hymers’ Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle and something named the “Fundamentalist Christian Bookstore and KJV (King James Version) Bibles”--what I imagine is an uneasy neighbor to the “I Am Accredited Sanctuary and Reading Room” of the metaphysical St. Germaine Foundation.

Now near Elysian Park and the Los Angeles River, the Young Nak (Korean) Presbyterian Church moved last year from the Fairfax district to a large new complex. Observing the bustle of activity as a fleet of buses shuttles worshipers on Sunday mornings, it’s easy to see why Young Nak is considered one of the fastest-growing churches in California.

The Rev. Gene Scott, the iconoclastic television minister, for a time held services at the downtown Church of the Open Door, but his purchase deal fell through in 1986 amid court battles. After moving his flock back to Wescott Christian Center in Glendale, Scott returned this year to the 1,800-seat United Artists Theater on Broadway. Scott spent $2 million renovating the classic movie house, which he now calls University Cathedral.

The Southland is also home base for several denominations: The Calvary Chapels and the Vineyard Fellowship are Orange County-based networks of charismatic churches extending outside the state.

More than 250 congregations of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, founded by the Rev. John Wimber, a charismatic pastor in Yorba Linda, feature freewheeling, “praise-service” worship and close disciplining of members.

The International Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches is the far-flung group of homosexual-oriented churches started in the late 1960s by the Rev. Troy Perry in Los Angeles.

The United Church of Religious Science is also based in Los Angeles, and the Worldwide Church of God is headquartered in Pasadena.

And the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, organized by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1927, is an offspring of her famed Angelus Temple near Echo Park Lake. The Rev. Jack Hayford’s “Church on the Way” in Van Nuys is a nationally known Foursquare Church that represents a maturing of the older pentecostal style popular in the earlier McPherson days.

I am also intrigued by the polyglot religions I found within an easy walk of our apartment: the upstairs Buddhist shrine of Pho Da Son Quan Am Po Tat Tu, Inc., on North Broadway; St. Peter-Italian Catholic Church and school a few doors down Broadway on the edge of Chinatown, and Croatian St. Anthony Catholic Church at the corner of North Grand and Alpine Street.

That such a religious mosaic should flourish is remarkable and deserves a closer look.