The Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help — affectionately known as the Mission Church — is a soaring Roman Catholic basilica that has anchored Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood since the parish first opened in 1870. Built and staffed by the Redemptorist order, its twin spires are a landmark visible across the southern…
Arlington Street Church is a landmark Unitarian Universalist congregation at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets in Boston’s Back Bay, directly across from the Public Garden. Completed in 1861, it was among the first major public buildings erected on the newly filled Back Bay land. Designed by Arthur Gilman in a Georgian-influenced style, the…
The Madonna Queen of the Universe National Shrine crowns a hilltop in East Boston’s Orient Heights, where a towering bronze statue of the Madonna looks out over the neighborhood and Boston Harbor beyond. The shrine was founded by the Don Orione Fathers, a Roman Catholic religious order, and dedicated in the 1950s. The copper-and-bronze Madonna…
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, known as The Mother Church, is the headquarters of the Christian Science religion founded by Mary Baker Eddy. The complex pairs the original 1894 Romanesque church with a grand domed Renaissance-style extension completed in 1906, set on the expansive Christian Science Plaza with its long reflecting pool, a landmark…
St. Stephen’s Church stands on Hanover Street in Boston’s North End and is the only surviving church in the city designed by the celebrated architect Charles Bulfinch. Built in 1802–1804 as a Congregationalist meetinghouse called New North Church, the elegant brick building with its restored Bulfinch cupola reflects the Federal style that shaped early Boston….
The Cathedral of the Holy Cross is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and the seat of its archbishop. Rising on Washington Street in the South End, this Gothic Revival landmark was designed by architect Patrick Keely and dedicated in 1875. It is among the largest Catholic cathedrals in New England,…
Park Street Church is a historic evangelical Congregational church founded in 1809, standing at the corner of Park and Tremont Streets at the edge of Boston Common. Its soaring 217-foot steeple was once the tallest structure in the United States and remains a defining feature of the downtown skyline. The corner became known as ‘Brimstone…
Old South Church is a landmark Gothic Revival church anchoring the northeast corner of Copley Square in Boston’s Back Bay. Completed in 1873, the building was designed by architects Charles Amos Cummings and Willard T. Sears, with a distinctive Italian Gothic-inspired facade, polychrome stonework, and a soaring campanile. The congregation traces its roots to 1669…
Emmanuel Church stands at 15 Newbury Street in the Back Bay, where it was the first building completed on Newbury Street as the newly filled neighborhood took shape. Founded in 1860 and built in 1861 to a design by architect Alexander Rice Esty, this Episcopal parish is a Gothic Revival landmark anchoring one of Boston’s…
The Vilna Shul is the last immigrant-era synagogue building standing in downtown Boston, tucked onto the north slope of Beacon Hill at 18 Phillips Street. Built in 1919 by Jewish immigrants who came largely from Vilna (now Vilnius), Lithuania, it served as an active congregation until the 1980s, when the building fell quiet and faced…
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