Saga of Worcester’s churches [Congregational/Unitarian]

The announcement that the First Unitarian Church will celebrate its 225th anniversary next year is a reminder of the long and contentious epic of religion in this community.

First Unitarian started in 1785 as the Second Parish Church. It split off that year from the First Parish, the established Congregational Church located on the Common. It is remarkable that Worcester’s two oldest churches still survive and flourish whereas dozens of others have since blossomed and faded away. The First Parish Church is now located in Tatnuck, where it proudly displays its Paul Revere bell on its lawn. The Second Parish Church, now First Unitarian, was at first located on Summer Street and has been at its current location on Court Hill since 1829 —180 years — despite being burned to the ground in 1849 and demolished by the hurricane of 1938.

It thus precedes by a few years the Catholic Church on Temple Street. That first church, erected in 1834, was rebuilt and dedicated as St. John’s in 1845. Incidentally, after the Catholics were rebuffed in trying to buy a plot of land for a church, three Protestants, including two from the Second Parish, William C. Lincoln and Francis P. Blake, bought the Temple Street lot and presented it to Father James Fitton.

Religion had been a hot topic in Massachusetts ever since the Puritans arrived in Boston in 1629. Unlike the Plymouth pilgrims of 1620, who called themselves Separatists and had nothing to do with any church in England, the Boston Puritans believed that they were “purifying” the English church. They established the Calvinist Congregational Church as the one official faith, and required all residents to support it by taxation. That system lasted for 200 years.

The tale of New England Protestantism is convoluted but it may help to remember the three “A”s — Arianism, Antinomianism and Arminianism. Those were fighting words 250 years ago. Arianism is an ancient heresy that denies the Trinity. Antinomianism is Calvinism carried to the extreme of asserting that the grace of God frees human beings from any obligation to obey man-made rules. Arminianism is the belief that human beings have free will and are not predestined to salvation or damnation, as John Calvin taught.

Those three doctrines powerfully influenced New England Protestantism, whether Congregational, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Baptist or Methodist. The Puritans were Calvinist from the beginning, but by the 1700s cracks were appearing. Leicester, for example, authorized a Quaker meeting and a Baptist church in the 1730s. Leominster and Sturbridge had Baptist groups by the middle of the century.

Then came the Great Awakening, a mass revival movement started by Jonathan Edwards in Northampton and peaking during the 1740s, when the magnetic George Whitefield, a Methodist preacher whose booming voice was said to have reached outdoor audiences of thousands, toured New England. He spoke to a huge crowd in Worcester in October 1740. He brought something new to the equation — the idea that salvation came when an individual had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ — what we today would call “born-again Christians.” The idea brought new energy to the revivals all over New England.

Still, the town resisted change. Unlike Leicester, Sturbridge and Leominster, the Worcester town fathers refused to authorize any other church than the First Parish. An attempt by some Presbyterians to organize a church here in the 1720s was blocked by mob violence when their partially completed building was torn down and destroyed. Not until 1785, after a bruising political battle, did the Second Parish finally break free and hire a minister, Aaron Bancroft, a believer in Arminianism and stoutly opposed to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Although he was at first shunned by the other members of the clergy in Worcester County, he eventually won widespread respect and became the first president of the American Unitarian Association, when that group was organized in 1825.

In 1833, the Legislature repealed the church establishment law, and state-favored religion ended. From then on, the Congregationalists, like everyone else, had to raise funds privately.

After that, the bars came down. The Baptists had dedicated their first meetinghouse on Salem Square in 1713, and at least 10 Baptist churches were organized in the next 50 years. The Methodist Episcopal Religious Society was incorporated in 1834, and several Methodist churches were established in the next few decades. The African Methodist Zion Church was started in 1846. The Quakers began moving from Leicester to Worcester in the 1840s and built their first meetinghouse here in 1846. The Universalists, who did not believe in hell or damnation, dedicated their first Worcester meetinghouse in 1843. The First Lutheran Church, no doubt impelled by the large Swedish immigration to Worcester, was inaugurated in 1881. A half-dozen other Lutheran churches were founded in the next 20 years.

The “Protestant Episcopal Church” of Worcester was established in 1836 and built four new churches in the next few decades. The Presbyterians, so rudely rebuffed in the 1720s, finally built a Worcester church in 1886. In recent times, many new churches, some Hispanic, have appeared in Worcester. The beat goes on.

And the two churches that held the stage in 1785 — the First Parish (now Tatnuck Congregational) and the Second Parish (First Unitarian) continue to serve, their theological squabbles long forgotten. At a time when churches seem to be falling like autumn leaves across New England, it is pleasing to note two that continue to flourish.

First Unitarian started in 1785 as the Second Parish Church. It split off that year from the First Parish, the established Congregational Church located on the Common....
....The tale of New England Protestantism is convoluted but it may help to remember the three “A”s — Arianism, Antinomianism and Arminianism...Those three doctrines powerfully influenced New England Protestantism, whether Congregational, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Baptist or Methodist. The Puritans were Calvinist from the beginning, but by the 1700s cracks were appearing. Leicester, for example, authorized a Quaker meeting and a Baptist church in the 1730s. Leominster and Sturbridge had Baptist groups by the middle of the century....
....Unlike Leicester, Sturbridge and Leominster, the Worcester town fathers refused to authorize any other church than the First Parish. An attempt by some Presbyterians to organize a church here in the 1720s was blocked by mob violence when their partially completed building was torn down and destroyed. Not until 1785, after a bruising political battle, did the Second Parish finally break free and hire a minister, Aaron Bancroft, a believer in Arminianism and stoutly opposed to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Although he was at first shunned by the other members of the clergy in Worcester County, he eventually won widespread respect and became the first president of the American Unitarian Association, when that group was organized in 1825.

In 1833, the Legislature repealed the church establishment law, and state-favored religion ended. From then on, the Congregationalists, like everyone else, had to raise funds privately.

Now, now, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State may have to pay you a visit.

Don’t mention that little problem that the First Amendment only covered actions of the federal government and the states and local communities were free to do what they wanted in terms of supporting religion. And that all that Jefferson was talking about in his famous letter about the wall of separation was that the federal government could not create an “established” church.

When I was a girl in New England, churches such as Congregational and Unitarian owned big, drafty, “downtown” buildings, but often used those only for society weddings, while they held regular services in a practical, modern building in the ‘burbs.

I noticed when I moved to the South that there was no similar history of those denominations.

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