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About Us
We are a mid-sized Unitarian Universalist (UU) congregation of 147 members plus many friends. Our church is at 150 South Clinton Avenue in Rochester, New York
(map). We welcome everyone, including bisexual, gay, lesbian and/or transgender people.
We have programs for children, youth and adults, and child care is provided for
adult programs.
Our mission is to nurture the spirit and serve the community.
We govern ourselves by congregational polity, which means the members vote on such things as staff hiring, budgets, mission statements and who represents us. We have a
volunteer Board of Trustees who establishes long term goals, develops budget and policy and works with our minister to keep our organization running.
While we have no creed that all members must adopt as their own belief in order to be a UU, we do have some commonly held views, which, being UU, are always subject to debate and change by a vote of the entire
membership. We promote and affirm seven principles:
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and society at large;
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part
Some might think this is a creed, but it is not. No one is required to sign
or swear under oath a profession of belief in order to become a member.
The Living Tradition, which we share, draws from six sources:
- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder,
affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit
and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us
to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion
and the transforming power of love;
- Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us
in our ethical and spiritual life;
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love
by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason
and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
- Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate
the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony
with the rhythms of nature.
A favorite story from the First Universalist Church in Rochester, NY tells how their founding minister was kidnapped from a passing train. Of course it is not literally true, but it illustrates the sense of humor that is a hallmark of this congregation of a people called Unitarian Universalists.
The gospel of Universalism had been proclaimed in the scruffy mill village of Rochesterville as early as 1819, but it took over a quarter-century and a small but determined succession of devoted leaders and followers to establish a permanent organization. A wave of religious revivals in upstate New York during the bleak 1830’s—which in 1950 would give rise to the designation “the Burned Over District—generated so much local opposition to Universalism that the Utica, NY editor of a denominational paper wrote in 1833, “How many times more, we would ask, is this unfortunate village destined to be scared over with the wildfires of … fanaticism? What have the citizens of Rochester done, that they should be singled out above all people on the face of the earth?”
By the next decade those “wildfires” began to subside, and a phenomenal tenfold population growth resulting from commerce and traffic on the new Erie Canal quickly transformed Rochester from mud-hole to metropolis. In late 1845 the Universalist faithful, determined to establish a permanent presence in their thriving city, learned that a highly popular clergyman was to pass through Rochester on the train. They posted two of their leaders at the station to intercept him and successfully persuaded him to return and serve as their minister. In May of 1846, fifty-six believers joyfully signed a charter of incorporation, and the church they began building was dedicated, debt-free, the following year.
By all accounts, the life of First Universalist to the end of the nineteenth century was highlighted by modest prosperity and increased tolerance in the larger community. In 1874 a Union Thanksgiving Service was established with Temple B’rith Kodesh and First Unitarian Church which has been observed continuously, with a constantly expanding interfaith outreach, to the present day.
Then in 1907 the congregation was stunned by a generous offer from a developer who wanted to raze their newly remodeled church and build a hotel on the site. Quickly they chose a new location only a block away and hired the visionary architect Claude Bragdon to design their new edifice, which is our present congregational home. A number of stained glass windows were saved from the old building and incorporated into the new one, and a pipe organ was installed which is now known wryly as the Hopeless Jones, a play on the name of Robert Hope-Jones, its controversial builder whose designs were forerunners of the theater organ. During the 1920’s church attendance peaked in the three and four hundreds, and from 1926 through the 1930’s a major local radio station aired over 10,000 broadcasts of organ music and Universalist sermons to a widespread audience.
Two world wars and the Great Depression had little traumatic effect on congregational life at First Universalist. But wrenching social changes during the 1960’s and 1970’s—including urban decay and violence, a controversial Asian war, bitter confrontations between the city’s racial minorities and its largest employer, and a decline in church attendance overall—generated divisiveness and despair. In 1966 the shrinking congregation voted to sell their property and relocate. But four years later the plan fell through, leaving a number of remaining members financially and spiritually devastated. “Landmark Church on Death Row,” reported the Rochester Times-Union in 1971, as members—many with sorrow and a few with relief—began soliciting bids for its demolition.
But Fate had not reckoned with the spirit of First Universalist. Beginning in the autumn of 1979, three successive ministries of nine, ten, and six years respectively drew on the congregation’s inherent resilience and love of life to bring about personal and institutional transformations that the embattled members of days gone by could barely have conceived. A massive $750,000 capital campaign during the mid-1980’s ensured the continued survival of the building. A popular concert series with the Eastman School of Music begun in 1995 has enhanced the visibility of both music (including the “Hopeless Jones!”) and Unitarian Universalism in the wider community. And in 2002 the congregation returned from summer hiatus to a refinished religious education wing, a completely remodeled Clara Barton Room, with a ramp leading up to the new door cut out of the east wall to the outside, and a newly installed lift elevator. We rejoice in all our past ministries have brought us and look forward to the dreams their successors and this congregation, still “downtown” after all these years, can realize together.
As our founding minister was waylaid on a railroad track, so our future minister will be intercepted on today’s Internet highway. So “come, come, wherever you are,” we are logged on and eagerly waiting!
As part of our centennial celebration in 2007, our church historian, Karen Dau, wrote a wonderfully detailed booklet titled First Universalist of Rochester: Timeline of a Century Landmark. The information here comes from that booklet.
In January 1907, First Universalist's Board of Trtustees received a stunning proposal from a real estate developer who wanted to build a hotel where their current building stood. The membership voted to move.
The church board hired Claude Bragdon, one of Rochester's most respected architects, to design a new church. He modeled our new building on the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey and incorporated several stained glass windows, including our beloved Sargent window, from the soon-to-be-demolished church. The cornerstone of the new church - and our current building - was laid on September 15,
1907. His design included a second-floor gymnasium.
The board contracted to purchase an organ from the Hope-Jones Organ
Company in December 1907. The innovative design used
electrical current combined with air to activate the pipes.
This type of organ was quickly becoming popular in movie
theaters in a time during the silent era.
The dedication ceremony was a week-long event in October 2008,
starting with a sermon by Rev. Grose titled "Our
Inheritance." Mark Twain, as a director of the Hope-Jones Organ Company, came to our church for a demonstration of the organ used to accompany a singer, which at that time was generally considered to be an unsuitable use of an organ.
Even then, we liked to "push the envelope."
In 1937, the organ underwent a restoration. Murray Memorial Chimes, which allowed 25 cathedral chimes to be played from the keyboard, were added.
The long-unused second floor gymnasium was renovated to create classrooms in 1959.
A third floor was added.
In May of 1971, the U. S. Department of Interior listed our church at 150 S. Clinton Avenue on its National Register of Historic Places.
Our building and organ have undergone many restorations and changes over the years. We are still here, still standing.
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