Religious, Spiritual sights in Boston
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King’s Chapel & Burying Ground
Bostonians were not pleased when the original Anglican church was erected on this site in 1688. (Remember, it was the Anglicans – the Church of England – whom the Puritans were fleeing.) The granite chapel standing today was built in 1754. If the church seems to be missing something, it is: funds ran out before a spire could be added. The church houses the largest bell ever made by Paul Revere, as well as a historic organ. Note the prestigious Governor’s pew, once occupied by George Washington, who came to hear a concert. Request a brochure to take a self-guided tour of the church’s architectural and historical highlights. After the revolution, King’s Chapel became the fi…
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Mary Baker Eddy Library & Mapparium
The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is an odd amalgam, housing the offices of the internationally regarded newspaper the Christian Science Monitor, as well as one of Boston’s hidden treasures, the intriguing Mapparium. The Mapparium is a room-size, stained-glass globe that visitors walk through on a glass bridge. It was created in 1935, which is reflected in the globe’s geopolitical boundaries. The acoustics, which surprised even the designer, allow everyone in the room to hear even the tiniest whisper. Second-floor galleries deal with the ‘search for the meaning of life, ’ both on a personal and global level. The heart of the library’s collections,…
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Christ Church
Cambridge’s oldest church was designed in 1761 by America’s first formally trained architect, Peter Harrison (who also did King’s Chapel in Boston). Washington’s troops used it as a barracks after its Tory congregation fled. Christ Church’s favorite son is Teddy Roosevelt, who taught Sunday school here when he was a student at Harvard. An interesting addendum to that story is that the future president was actually discharged because he refused to convert to Episcopalian but chose to remain a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. Adjacent to the church, the Old Burying Ground is a tranquil revolutionary-era cemetery, where Harvard’s first eight presidents are buried.…
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Park Street Church
Shortly after the construction of Park St Church, powder for the War of 1812 was stored in the basement, earning this location the moniker ‘Brimstone Corner.’ But that was hardly the most inflammatory event that took place here. Noted for its graceful, 217ft steeple, this Boston landmark has been hosting historic lectures and musical performances since its founding. In 1829 William Lloyd Garrison railed against slavery from the church’s pulpit. And on Independence Day in 1831, Samuel Francis Smith’s hymn ‘America’ (My Country ‘Tis of Thee) was first sung. These days, Park St is a conservative congregational church.
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Arlington St Church
This 1861 church was the first public building erected in Back Bay. The original congregation gathered in 1729 in a barn on Federal and Franklin Sts. Three meeting houses later, this graceful church features extraordinary Tiffany windows and 16 bells in its steeple, which was modeled after London’s well-known church St Martin-in-the-Fields. The church’s Unitarian Universalist ministry is purely progressive, as it has been since Rev William Ellery Channing preached in the early 19th century. (A statue in his honor is across the street in the Public Garden.)
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New Old South Church
This magnificent Venetian Gothic church on Copley Sq is called the ‘new’ Old South because up until 1875, the congregation worshiped in the Old South Church on Milk St (now the Old South Meeting House). The new church’s exterior stonework is pudding stone and the interior woodwork is exquisite Italian cherry. The Congregational church has an impressive collection of stained-glass windows, all shipped from London, and an organ that was rescued from a Minneapolis church just before demolition.
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Seamen’s Bethel
The small chapel called Seamen’s Bethel, across from the Whaling Museum, was a refuge for sailors from the rigors and stresses of maritime life. Melville immortalized it in Moby-Dick. ‘In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen… who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot.’
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Christian Science Church
Known to adherents as the ‘Mother Church, ’ this is the international home base for the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science), founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1866. Tour the grand classical revival basilica, which can seat 3000 worshippers, listen to the 14,000-pipe organ and linger on the expansive plaza with its 670ft-long reflecting pool.
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Old North Church
‘One if by land, Two if by sea…’ Everyone knows the line from Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride. It was here, on the night of April 18, 1775, that the sexton hung two lanterns from the steeple, as a signal that the British would march on Lexington and Concord via the sea route. Also called Christ Church, this 1723 place of worship is Boston’s oldest church. Many of the tall pew boxes bear the brass nameplates of early parishioners who had to purchase their pews. The brass chandeliers used today were first lit on Christmas in 1724. Note the candles – there is no electric lighting in the church. This remains an active church; the grand organ is played at the 11am Sunday…
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United First Parish Church
John and Abigail Adams, and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams are all interred in the basement of the handsome granite United First Parish Church, in Quincy Center.
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