Calvary-St. George's Parish
Church building in New York City / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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40.73888°N 73.98669°W / 40.73888; -73.98669
Calvary-St. George's Parish is an Episcopal parish in Manhattan, New York City. The current Rector is Jacob Smith, who came to the parish and was ordained as a presbyter in the fall of 2006 and installed as Rector in 2017.[1] The other priests are Molly Jane Layton, Janet Broderick, and Nancy Hanna.[2] Kamel Boutros, a former singer with Metropolitan Opera, is music director.[3] In 2021, it reported 625 members, average attendance of 139, and $749,025 in plate and pledge income.[4]
Calvary-St George's was the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous.[5][6] It also served as the launch point for Let My People Go, a non-profit organization that teaches churches how to fight human trafficking,[6] and sponsors Out Not Down, an LGBT youth homelessness prevention program.[7] A soup kitchen ministry serves meals to approximately 125 people on Thursdays at noon.[8] The parish also hosts a children's Christmas pageant open to "[w]hoever shows up at church," according to Wall Street Journal.[9]
After a May 1, 2016 fire burned neighboring church Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava,[10] members of that parish temporarily used the St George's sanctuary to gather.[11] St George's also hosts St. Ann's Church for the Deaf, the first church for the Deaf in the United States,[12] and Sea Dog Theater, a non-profit off-Broadway theater troupe.[13]
During the early days of New York's 2020 coronavirus lockdown, New York Post reported on the church's bells, which played "Amazing Grace" and other hymns four times a day.[14][15] Calvary-St George's connection to Harry Thacker Burleigh,[16] one of the first African-American composers to incorporate spirituality into music, was subject of a February 2021 PIX11 Black history moment.[17]