On Ash Wednesday this year, about a dozen people attended a noon service at Boston’s Old North Church, founded in 1723. Two days later, a handful of worshippers took part in a Shabbat service at Newport, Rhode Island’s Touro Synagogue, dedicated in 1763. Both congregations have been conducting sacred rituals longer than the United States has existed.
Such places of worship are rare. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research estimates that of the 370,000 religious congregations in the U.S. today, only about 1% existed at the country’s founding, according to the institute’s data.
When the colonies declared independence in 1776, there were 3,228 houses of worship across the Colonies, according to sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. The U.S. was already religiously diverse. Congregationalists led the pack with about 670 congregations, or just over 20% of the total. Presbyterians were not far behind at 18%, followed by Baptists and Episcopalians at about 15% each, and Quakers at nearly 10%. Methodists had a following at 2%, Catholics were just under 2%, and there were a handful of synagogues and more than a dozen Mennonite congregations, according to Stark and Finke.
Old North Church, officially named Christ Church in the City of Boston, is best known for the signal lanterns hung from its steeple on April 18, 1775, that warned of the British advance — “one if by land, two if by sea,” as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem later popularized. The church sexton Robert Newman and vestryman John Pulling Jr. hung the lanterns, according to historical accounts. The church’s congregation, which began meeting in 1723, continues to hold regular Episcopal services.
Touro Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue building in the United States, was dedicated in 1763. In 1790, George Washington visited Newport and received a letter from Moses Seixas, a warden of the congregation, expressing hopes that the new government would “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Washington’s reply, which affirmed that the government of the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,” has become a foundational document of American religious freedom.
Both buildings have survived wars, schisms, and legal disputes. Old North Church weathered the American Revolution, during which British troops stripped the interior for firewood, and later survived a 19th-century schism within the Episcopal Church. Touro Synagogue remained standing through the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and was designated a National Historic Site in 1946.
The congregations themselves have changed over the centuries. Old North Church’s current congregation is smaller than its colonial-era peak, according to church officials. Touro Synagogue’s congregation, which once numbered several hundred families, now counts about 50 member families, according to synagogue officials.
“We are a small but mighty congregation,” said Jenifer Miller, a member of Touro Synagogue’s board, in an interview. “We carry the weight of history, but we also carry the joy of being a living, breathing community of faith.”
The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, vicar of Old North Church, said the congregation’s longevity reflects a commitment to continuity. “We are not a museum,” Cadwell said. “We are a church. People come here to pray, to marry, to bury their dead, to mark the seasons of their lives. That has been true for 300 years, and it is still true today.”
The buildings themselves require constant maintenance. Old North Church underwent a $1.5 million restoration of its steeple in the 1990s, and Touro Synagogue completed a $4.5 million restoration in 2020, according to officials at both sites.
“We are stewards of something that is bigger than us,” said Meaghan Kelly Brower, executive director of the Old North Church Foundation. “The building is a symbol of American history, but it is also a living house of worship. Our job is to make sure it is here for the next 300 years.”