Christ Church, Cambridge

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For other churches with this name, please see Christ Church (disambiguation)

Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. The congregation was originally founded in 1759 by members of the King's Chapel who lived in Cambridge to have a church closer to their homes and to provide Church of England services to students at Harvard College across Cambridge Common. Most of the founding members lived along the near-by 'Tory Row', which is now called Brattle Street in Cambridge. The church is the design of the noted colonial era architect, Peter Harrison who also designed the King's Chapel in Boston. The church's first Rector was East Apthorp.

Since the end of the Revolution (during which the church building was closed and its organ melted down for bullets) the church has continued to be open to the community. The doors, even today, remain open daily, welcoming people from early morning to evening.

The wood frame church rests on a granite foundation that was built from stones that served as balast on incoming ships to Boston Harbor. The church was originally finished in a sanded paint treatment to give the appearance of a stone church that was more in keeping with traditional English chapel construction.

Christ Church was the site of an attack by dissenting Americans during the Revolution due to the church's association with Toryism. The church was also the site of a prayer service at which George and Martha Washington attended while General Washington had his headquarters in one of the homes along 'Tory Row' (i.e. the Longfellow House) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For several years after the American Revolution, the church stood empty, without a congregation. However, in the later years of the eighteenth century, the church was re-opened as an Episcopal Church and has remained so until this day.

The original chapel was expanded in 1857 to accommodate a larger congregation and to help raise funds for the church by expanding pew rental income. The church had ells added in the later portion of the nineteenth century and again in the mid-twentieth century into its present form.

Generations of Harvard students, from Richard Henry Dana (Two Years Before the Mast) to Teddy Roosevelt (who was asked not to continue as a Sunday School teacher because he would not become an Episcopalian) have made Christ Church their parish home during their studies.

Christ Church has a long history of social activism, supporting the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and ministries of social justice. In April 1967, the Reverend Martin Luther King and Doctor Benjamin Spock were denied access to a building at Harvard University to hold a press conference denouncing the Vietnam War. The Reverend Murray Kenney welcomed them to Christ Church. A plaque in the parish hall commemorates the event.

Christ Church-Cambridge is a National Historic Landmark.

Christ Church Website