Church Of The Resurrection (Rye, New York)
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The Church of the Resurrection is a
Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
church located in
Rye, New York Rye is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, within the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area. It received its charter as a city in 1942, making it the most recent such charter in the state. Its area of ...
. The parish was founded in 1880, and the current church building was completed in 1931.


History

The Church of the Resurrection was established in 1880 by the
Archbishop of New York The Archbishop of New York is the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, who is responsible for looking after its spiritual and administrative needs. As the archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province encomp ...
, Cardinal
John McCloskey John McCloskey (March 10, 1810 – October 10, 1885) was an Catholic Church in the United States, American Catholic prelate who served as the first American-born Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Archbishop of New York from 1864 until his ...
, as a parish for
Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than o ...
and
Harrison, New York Harrison is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town and Administrative divisions of New York (state), village in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York Cit ...
. Prior to the church's founding, Catholic residents of Rye and Harrison attended mass at Our Lady of Mercy Church in
Port Chester Port Chester is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and the largest part of the town of Rye (town), New York, Rye in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County by populati ...
. The first masses were said in a rented hall on the northeast corner of Cedar and Purchase Streets in Rye beginning on June 6, 1880. Eventually, the parish purchased the William Smith house in 1881 at the intersection of Purchase Street and the
Boston Post Road The Boston Post Road was a system of mail-delivery routes between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts, that evolved into one of the first major highways in the United States. The three major alignments were the Lower Post Road (now U.S. Ro ...
, where services were then offered. The parish was incorporated on January 29, 1886, and
title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...
to the property was transferred from the archdiocese to the parish itself. A new church building was completed in 1889 on Purchase Street, while the former building was used as the
rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...
. Thereafter, construction of a
parochial school A parochial school is a private school, private Primary school, primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathem ...
on the Boston Post Road began in 1906 and was completed two years later. With the number of parishioners growing, the church purchased land on Boston Post Road in 1927, on which ground was broken that year for the construction of the current church building, which cost approximately $400,000. The church was completed in 1931, and the first mass was said on
Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...
of that year. Designed by architects Henry D. Murphy and Edward Lehmann, the massive
Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...
structure was dubbed the "Cathedral of Westchester".


Music

In 1979,
John-Michael Caprio John-Michael Caprio (July 1947 – December 25, 1997) was an American conductor and organist who served as the music director at St. Patrick's Cathedral (Manhattan), St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City between 1990 and 1997. During his seven ...
became the church's director of music; he would go on to be director of music at New York city's St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 1989, Dr. William Maul was appointed director of music at the Church of the Resurrection. He retired in 2011, and was succeeded by Joseph Viserta.


Resurrection School

The original Resurrection Grammar School building was located at 1085 Boston Post Road, at the intersection of Purchase Street, adjacent to the original site of the church. Once the church moved to its present site, the school building was converted into a residence for nuns, before becoming a private apartment house, which it remains today. The current grammar school building, designed in the Tudor Revival style, was built behind the church, with frontage along Milton Road. It originally housed pupils in grades 1–8. In 1950, the Academy of the Resurrection, an all-girls preparatory school, was opened, adjacent to the church property along Boston Post Road. The school shuttered in the early 1990s, at which point it was converted for usage by Resurrection Grammar School students in grades 4–8, and became known as Resurrection Middle School. The Montessori level through grade 3 remained in the original grammar school building.


See also

* List of parishes in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Resurrection, Church of the Roman Catholic churches in New York (state) Churches in Westchester County, New York Religious organizations established in 1880 1880 establishments in New York (state) Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York Buildings and structures in Rye, New York Roman Catholic churches completed in 1931 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States