Saint Thomas Church (Manhattan)

thumb|right|250px|A painting by George Harvey (1801–1878) entitled Nightfall, St. Thomas Church, Broadway, New York () currently in the collection of the [[Museum of the City of New York, shows the first Saint Thomas Church on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street]]

Saint Thomas Church is an Episcopal parish church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Also known as Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue or Saint Thomas Church in the City of New York, the parish was incorporated on January 9, 1824. The current structure, the congregation's fourth church, was designed by the architects Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in the French High Gothic Revival style and completed in 1914. The church reported 2,753 members in 2015 and 2,875 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income reported for the congregation in 2024 was $2,435,735 with average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 478 persons.

In 2020, following a gift from the family trust of the late John and Mary Alyce Merrow, a camera system with a dozen 360-degree-rotating cameras was installed. Online attendance has remained significant; during Advent and Christmas, 2022, on-line participation was 38,000 with an average attendance of 25 minutes.

The church is home to the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, a choral ensemble comprising men and boys which performs music of the Anglican tradition at worship services and offers a full concert series during the course of the year. The men of the Saint Thomas Choir are professional singers and the boys are students enrolled at the Saint Thomas Choir School, the only church-affiliated residential choir school in the United States, where the choristers make up the whole student body. Only three such schools remain in the world currently; the two Anglican Choir Schools are Saint Thomas Choir School and Westminster Abbey Choir School in the United Kingdom.

History

Broadway and Houston Street

On October 12, 1823, members of three Episcopal parishes in Lower Manhattan collaborated to organize a new episcopal church in New York. These included William Backhouse Astor, a wealthy Manhattan landowner; Charles King, later president of Columbia University; and jurist William Beach Lawrence. The congregation came from Grace Church, Trinity Church, and St. George's Church.

Saint Thomas Church was incorporated on January 9, 1824, and the cornerstone of the new church building laid in July 1824 at the northwest corner of Broadway and Houston Street. The first church edifice opened in 1826 and was described as "the best specimen of Gothic in the city." The location was the northern extent of developed settlement in Manhattan during the early 19th century. It was designed in a Gothic Revival style by architect Joseph R. Brady and John McVickar, professor of moral philosophy at Columbia College (now Columbia University). The church was enlarged and remodeled in 1844 to accommodate a growing congregation. Two years later, on October 6, 1870, the congregation moved into its new home. This structure, in a neighborhood at the time dominated by the mansions of Manhattan's upper class, featured a prominent high tower and a bas-relief reredos by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and murals by John LaFarge. This structure was destroyed by fire on August 8, 1905. Only the tower remained from the third church.

Current church

The fourth and current church, designed in 1906, was built from 1911 to 1913, on the same site as the third church. It was built to a design by Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue of the architectural firm of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson. The cornerstone was laid on November 21, 1911, and the new building opened to congregants on October 4, 1913. It was consecrated on April 25, 1916.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had so shocked the church's rector, the Rev. Ernest M. Stires, that he rushed the accumulated balance in his parish's building fund to aid the stricken city. The public responded in kind to his generosity with unsolicited gifts that more than replenished the fund.

Cram and Goodhue are also noted for having designed Saint Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue and East 50th Street, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue and West 110th Street, the chapel and a large portion of the campus at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, the Princeton University Chapel at Princeton University and the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

21st century

In the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, Saint Thomas Church reached out to the British expatriate community in recognition of its Anglican heritage. This culminated in an interfaith service held at the church on September 20, 2001. The service was addressed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and broadcast live in its entirety throughout the United Kingdom. On October 28, 2002, the rector of Saint Thomas Church, Andrew C. Mead, was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. The honor was conferred at a ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.

In October 2023 Saint Thomas Church commemorated the bicentennial of its founding in 1823, with an exhibition, lectures and special services. The Assistant Bishop of New York, the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, and the Sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal, Paul Wright, preached in celebration of the anniversary. The following year, in May 2024, the 100th anniversary of the twinning of the cities of New York City and York in England was marked with special services attended by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Michael Curry, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, the Lord Mayor of York, Chris Cullwick, the Dean of York, the Very Rev. Dominic Barrington, and the British Consul General in New York, Hannah Young.

In 2025, the development firm Extell Development Company agreed to pay the congregation $36 million for of the site's unused development rights.

Rectors

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%;"

! !! Rector !! Years as Rector

| 1. || Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie || 1824–1827

| 2. || George Upfold || 1827–1831

| 3. || Francis Lister Hawks || 1831–1843

| 4. || Henry John Whitehouse || 1844–1851

| 5. || Edmund Neville || 1852–1856

| 6. || William Ferdinand Morgan || 1857–1888

| 7. || John Wesley Brown || 1888–1900

| 8. || Ernest Milmore Stires || 1901–1925

| 9. || Roelif Hasbrouck Brooks || 1926–1954

| 10. || Frederick Myers Morris || 1954–1972

| 11. || John Gerald Barton Andrew || 1972–1996

| 12. || Andrew Craig Mead || 1996–2014

| 13. || Carl Francis Turner || 2014–present

Architecture

left|thumb|Saint Thomas Church c. 1889 (third church)

thumb|right|Flamboyant limestone rose window.The present church, a New York City designated landmark, was designed by a partnership of Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Lee Lawrie designed the sculptures and decorations.

Worship

The style of worship at Saint Thomas Church has varied greatly over the history of the parish. Beginning with the rectorship of John Andrew in 1972, however, it has informally followed the Anglo-Catholic or high-church tradition within the Episcopal Church that developed out of the Oxford Movement. This was further developed under the rectorship of Andrew Mead. Sunday services include Low Mass, High Mass, and Evensong, and Solemn Mass on Christmas, Easter and major feast days. Special liturgies and processions are held for Advent, Epiphany, Candlemas and Holy Week. The Litany is sung in procession in Advent and Lent. For masses at the High Altar, the Church uses a variation on the three traditional sacred ministers ad orientem, however as with many other Anglo-Catholic parishes that do not look to Tridentine Rome for liturgical cues, many of the unique traditional roles of sacred ministers are currently in use—the Deacon reads the Gospel and the Subdeacon reads the Epistle. The choir of men and boys sing most Sundays in term time and, if there are no visiting choirs during the school vacation, the gentlemen of the choir sing the services. The church uses traditional language for many of its services on Sundays and weekdays and King James Version of the Bible is used at Sunday choral services and at Choral Evensong and Solemn Mass on feast days during the week. Rite II of the BCP 1979 is used for the 12:10 pm Mass Mondays to Saturdays. Choral Evensong uses the form found in the Church of England BCP of 1662. In Lent 2015 Shrine Prayers were started at the image of Our Lady of Fifth Avenue and intercessions are offered at noon after the Angelus Mondays to Saturdays; these intercessions may be left in the church or submitted online via the church website, and many prayer requests come from around the world every week. Confessions are heard each Saturday from 11:00–11:45 am. Since 2021, the 9 am Sunday Mass has become a children and family focused service, using Rite II and ad populum altar placed in the Chancel, but there are still acolytes and incense is used. A robed children's outreach choir called the Noble Singers and composed of local girls and boys sings at the 9 am service and the homily is designed for the children. On the second Sunday of each month, a Sunday Mass is offered in Korean. The church is open every day of the year.

Music

Choir of Men and Boys

thumb|250px|Boy choristers of the choir performing in the church

Music is an important component of worship and liturgy at Saint Thomas Church. It follows in the Anglican tradition of the all-male choral ensemble. The boy choristers reside at Saint Thomas Choir School.

The choir's primary function is to provide music for five services each week, as well as an annual concert series sponsored by the church. In addition, the choir has toured throughout North America and Europe, performing at venues such as the Lincoln Center, Westminster Abbey, and the Vatican. They have sung alongside artists such as Jessye Norman and Plácido Domingo, and gave the world-premiere performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem, which was televised internationally by the BBC. The choir was featured in a recording of Carly Simon's "Let the River Run", and has released a number of its own CDs.

Choral services are occasionally recorded for broadcast on the radio, most recently in November 2024 when Evensong and Matins were recorded for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, respectively.

In January 2025 plans were announced to expand the church's musical program with the formation of a girls' choir and a choir of men and women.

Organs

thumb|250px|Interior, 2013

Musical offerings at Saint Thomas Church are enhanced through three organs. The Arents Memorial Chancel Organ, which has been replaced with the Irene D. and William R. Miller Chancel Organ in Memory of John Scott, was initially built as the "Opus 205" of the Ernest M. Skinner Company of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1913.

The Loening-Hancock Gallery Organ was built as "Opus 27" of Taylor & Boody Organbuilders of Staunton, Virginia, in 1996 to honor Gerre Hancock for 25 years of service to Saint Thomas Church. Located in the gallery beneath the church's Rose Window, this organ features a mechanical key and stop action, originally possessing 2 manuals, 25 stops, and 32 ranks. In 2015 it was slightly enlarged, according to original preparations, to its current 3 manuals, 31 stops and 44 ranks. Its case sports

fumed white oak with pipe shades gilded in 23 carat gold. Its predecessor, the Loening Memorial Organ, dedicated in memory of Hermine Rubino Leoning, was built by Gilbert F. Adams in 1969 and featured 4 manuals, 59 stops, and 90 ranks.

Organists

1870–1900: George William Warren
1900–1912: William C. Macfarlane
1913–1943: T. Tertius Noble
1943–1953: T. Frederick Candlyn
1954–1971: William Self
1971–2004: Gerre Hancock
2004–2015: John Scott
2016–2019: Daniel Hyde
2019–2025: Jeremy Filsell
2025–present: Richard Tanner