Church gutted by blaze helps unite community
Minister: People ‘finding the light in the darkness’
NEW YORK — At Christmases past, parishioners at Middle Collegiate in New York City rejoiced over gospel hymns, carols and soul tunes played on a Steinway piano that is now only metal and ashes after the historic church was destroyed this month by fire.
“Our brass doors are warped, our glass is shattered, our beams have fallen down,” said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, the church’s senior minister. “The sanctuary is gutted. We are gutted.”
It seemed a tragic coda to an already-difficult year in which the congregation has met only virtually for nine months due to the pandemic. But amid the grief, Lewis asked parishioners to “worship God with joy” when they observed the fourth Sunday of Advent last weekend.
And they did — remotely, still, for safety reasons. Kids and teens sang carols in front of Christmas trees at home, parents lit candles and smiling families wished each other season’s greetings, all reinforcing Lewis’ and congregants’ conviction that the church is more than the beloved stone building where they formerly gathered.
“There’s something about people connecting to this tragedy in this time of Advent and Hanukkah,” Lewis said. “Finding the light in the darkness.”
Built in 1892 in the East Village, Middle Collegiate is home to the oldest congregation of the Collegiate Churches of New York, which date to the settlement of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in the 1620s. Middle Collegiate had previously occupied two other locations in Manhattan beginning in 1729.
Its belfry houses New York’s Liberty Bell, which tolled to mark the birth of the country in 1776 and was later rung for inaugurations and deaths of presidents and in remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Gothic Revival building went up in a blaze Dec. 5 after fire spread from a vacant building next door before dawn. Flames shot from the roof, destroying its Tiffany stained-glass windows and skylight dome.
The bell and the skeletal facade were the only parts of the structure to survive. So did two vinyl banners reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Just Love,” the church’s motto, something that Lewis found meaningful.
“That’s some kind of miracle that the fire does not torch your values,” she said days later in front of the church, smoky odor still lingering in the air. “So, we’re sad. We’re crushed. And we’re resilient.”