Arlington Street Church (Boston)
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Arlington Street Church
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Arlington St. Church, c. 1862. Photo by J.J. Hawes
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| Location | 351-355 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°20′0″N 71°2′30″W / 42.33333°N 71.04167°WCoordinates: 42°20′0″N 71°2′30″W / 42.33333°N 71.04167°W |
| Area | 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) |
| Built | 1861 |
| Architect | Gilman,Arthur |
| Architectural style | Other, 18th-century English |
| Part of | Back Bay Historic District (#73001948) |
| NRHP Reference # | 73000313 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | May 4, 1973 |
| Designated CP | August 14, 1973 |
The Arlington Street Church is a Unitarian Universalist church across from the Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts. Because of its geographic prominence and the notable ministers who have served the congregation, the church is considered to be among the most historically important in American Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism. Completed in 1861, it was designed by Arthur Gilman and Gridley James Fox Bryant to resemble James Gibbs' St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The main sanctuary space has 16 large-scale stained-glass windows installed by Tiffany Studios from 1899 to 1929.
On May 17, 2004, the Arlington Street Church was the site of the first state-sanctioned same-sex marriage in the United States.
The congregation was founded in 1729 as the "Church of the Presbyterian Strangers" and became independent in 1787, incorporating under a congregational model of polity. Until the Back Bay location was completed, the congregation was located in the Federal Street Church in downtown Boston, where William Ellery Channing, the first major American Unitarian minister, preached from 1803 to 1842. Two future presidents of the American Unitarian Association—Samuel Eliot and Dana Greeley—served the church during its first hundred years in the Arlington Street building. In 1935, the Second Universalist Church of Boston merged its assets with Arlington Street Church. In so doing, Arlington Street Church inherited the thinking of two great liberal theologians: Channing, called "the father of American Unitarianism," and Hosea Ballou, called "the father of American Universalism."
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