Unitarian Church of All Souls
| Unitarian Church of All Souls | |
|---|---|
(2016)
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| Basic information | |
| Location | Upper East Side, New York, NY, USA |
| Geographic coordinates | Coordinates: 40°46′32″N 73°57′30″W / 40.7755°N 73.9584°W |
| Affiliation | Unitarian Universalism |
| Year consecrated | 1819 |
| Specifications | |
| Direction of façade | west |
| Materials | Brick, wood, stone |
The Unitarian Church of All Souls at 1157 Lexington Avenue at East 80th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City was built in 1932 and was designed by Herbert Upjohn – Richard Upjohn's grandson – in the Neo-colonial style with a Regency-influenced brick base. It is the congregation's fourth sanctuary. It was the first Unitarian Universalist congregation in the city. It has provided a pulpit for some of the movement's leading theologians and has also recorded many eminent persons in its membership.
All Souls was the first Unitarian congregation to be organized in New York and originated in 1819 when Lucy Channing Russell invited forty friends and neighbors into her Lower Manhattan home, to listen to an address by her brother, William Ellery Channing, the minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston. Channing was making a stop in New York while traveling to Baltimore to preach the famous sermon in which he would articulate the distinctive tenets of Unitarian Christianity, the most salient of which were the rejection of the Trinity in favor of absolute Monotheism, and the imperative to interpret the Bible through reason. In New York, the enthusiasm aroused by Channing culminated in the formation of the First Congregational Church (Unitarian), which proceeded to erect its first building in 1820-21, on Chambers Street between Broadway and Church Street, before it had even found a minister. The task of recruitment was difficult since few ministers could be persuaded to venture away from the stability of the Unitarian heartland in New England and risk their careers in new congregations beyond. Finally, on December 18, 1821, William Ware was installed as the first minister.
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