Carpatho-Russian immigrants settling in New Britain founded SS Cyril and Methodius Othodox Church, built on Beatty Street in 1902. In 1913, the old church was sold to a Greek Orthodox parish and a new and larger church building, on Washington Street, was consecrated to the Holy Trinity. The church’s missionary work in the region led to the founding of other Russian Orthodox parishes, including All Saints Orthodox Church in Hartford in 1914.
The congregation of Three Saints Russian Orthodox Church in Ansonia was officially formed in 1895. Their first church building was constructed at Howard Avenue and Crescent Street in 1899-1900. After the interior of the church was gutted by a fire in 1954, a new church was constructed on Howard Avenue. Completed in 1955, the church was dedicated in 1956. The bells from the earlier church, a gift from Tsar Nicholas II, were installed in the new church.
St. Panteleimon Russian Orthodox Church in Hartford was organized in 1958. It is a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), founded by Russian refugees as a response to the rule of the Bolsheviks. Another Orthodox church in Hartford, All Saints Orthodox Church, is a parish of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), which traces its origins to the church established in Alaska when it was still part of the Russian Empire. St. Panteleimon Church was built in 1972 and was designed by Dimitri Alexandrow with the architectural firm of Austin & Mead. Labor for the construction was provided by members of the congregation. Fr. Dimitri, who was the congregation’s priest and also a master icon painter, taught himself architecture in order to design the church, learning the type of masonry used in constructing Orthodox churches. He was later consecrated a monk, taking the monastic name of Daniel, and in 1988 was consecrated as Bishop at the Russian Orthodox Old Rite Church of the Nativity in Erie, PA. Bishop Daniel, who speaks a dozen languages, also wrote a book called, Selected Fables From the East, Translated by a Russian Priest. (more…)
Congregation Beth Israel, Connecticut’s oldest Jewish congregation, was established in 1843. It is now one of the largest Reform congregations in the northeast. The first synagogue was built in Hartford in 1876 and is today the Charter Oak Cultural Center. In 1936, the congregation moved to a new building, on Farmington Avenue in West Hartford. Designed by Charles R. Greco, Temple Beth Israel was built in the Neo-Byzantine style and features a prominent Byzantine dome. The congregation received a West Hartford Historic Preservation Award in 2006 for the meticulous restoration of the synagogue.
The congregation of All Saints Orthodox Church was founded in Hartford in 1914. The original church building was on Broad Street, near the State Capitol. In 1956, land was purchased on Scarborough Street for a new church, which was not constructed until 1963-1964. Each November, the church has a Russian Tea Room and Bazaar. Today is Christmas, but some Russian-American Orthodox Christians will celebrate Christmas on January 7, the date of Russian Christmas.
While the Gothic style was used extensively in the nineteenth century and continues to be popular for churches, by the end of the century there was a general return to classicism and a growing interest in colonial architecture. The Immanuel Congregational Church, on Farmington Avenue, was built in 1899 in a style that drew on Roman and Byzantine antecedents and also reflected the Colonial Revival with its red brick and white trim. It was designed by Ernest Flagg, who was known for his neoclassical Beaux-Arts buildings. The church is located across the street from the Mark Twain House. Although the author was no longer residing in Hartford at the time, he still owned the house when the church was built, and referred to the new structure as the “Church of the Holy Oil Cloth” because of the green and yellow Byzantine tiles on the front elevation. These tiles proved so controversial they were plastered over and not uncovered again until the 1980s.
Immanuel Congregational Church is the successor to two earlier congregations. The older of the two was North Church, founded in 1824, and originally located on Main Street where the famous Horace Bushnell was the minister from 1833-1859. In 1867, the church moved to the corner of Asylum and High Street and was known as Park Church for its location across from Bushnell Park. Meanwhile, in 1852, Pearl Street Church had been founded. This congregation moved west and built the Farmington Avenue Church in 1899. It merged with Park Church in 1914 and the two congregations became one under the current name of Immanuel Congregational Church. The church also has a blog.
This concludes our week-long look at some nineteenth century Hartford churches. We began with the earliest Puritan congregations which, early in the century, produced meeting houses in the Federal style (Center Church, South Church). We then moved to the great popularity of the Gothic Revival style, popular with the Episcopal (Christ Church Cathedral) and Catholic (St. Peter’s Church) denominations, and also used by the Congregationalists (Asylum Hill Church). The use of the Gothic mode reached an artistic peak with Edward T. Potter’s High Victorian Gothic masterpiece, the Church of the Good Shepherd. And now we end our survey at the end of the century with the return to classicism represented by the Immanuel Congregational Church.
