The First Unitarian Church of Chicago is a

Unitarian Universalist Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to: Christian and Christian-derived theologies A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism: * Unitarianism (1565–present) ...

("UU") church in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Unitarians do not have a common

creed A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) which summarizes its core tenets. Many Christian denominations use three creeds ...

and include people with a wide variety of personal beliefs, and include

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin term '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...

monotheist Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...

pantheist Pantheism can refer to a number of philosophical and religious beliefs, such as the belief that the universe is God, or panentheism, the belief in a non-corporeal divine intelligence or God out of which the universe arisesAnn Thomson; Bodies ...

polytheist Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one god. According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, or whet ...

pagan Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

s, as well as other belief systems. One of the oldest churches in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, First Unitarian Chicago was founded July 29, 1836 and is currently located at 5650 S. Woodlawn Avenue. Its founding was in part the result of a small group of Chicago Unitarians with the minister

Charles Follen Charles (Karl) Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen (September 6, 1796 – January 13, 1840) was a Germans, German poet and patriot, who later moved to the United States and became the first professor of German language, German at Harvard Universi ...

. Its first building was constructed in 1841 on what is now the site of the Picasso statue in

Daley Plaza The Richard J. Daley Center, also known by its open courtyard Daley Plaza and named after longtime mayor Richard J. Daley, is the premier civic center of the city of Chicago, Illinois. The Center's modernist skyscraper primarily houses offic ...

. The building, twice enlarged before it burned down, held the first church bell in Chicago placed there in January 1845. In June 1862 the building was lost to fire, the congregation temporarily worshiped in St. Paul's Universalist Church until the new church building was completed and the first service was help November 22, 1863. In 1873 a new church building was constructed at the corner of 23rd and Michigan. And in 1897 a mission chapel to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

was built at 57th and Woodlawn in

Hyde Park, Chicago Hyde Park is a neighborhood on the South Side, Chicago, South Side of Chicago, Illinois, located on and near the shore of Lake Michigan south of Chicago Loop, the Loop. It is one of the city's 77 community areas of Chicago, community areas. ...

. In 1909, the 23rd ave building was sold and the congregation moved to the university chapel. A new edifice was built in 1925 in an English perpendicular Gothic style, a gift of church member and Illinois US Representative Morton D. Hull whose ashes now rest in the crypt below the building. A crypt for cinerary urns (a

Columbarium A columbarium (; pl. columbaria), also called a cinerarium, is a structure for the reverential and usually public storage of funerary urns holding cremated remains of the dead. The term comes from the Latin ''columba'' (dove) and originally solel ...

) below the nave was the first crypt for ashes in the city. It was designed intentionally to serve the neighborhood and city, not just members of the church. The 1931 building had a belltower featuring multiple floors, on top of which was added a steeple. The steeple was repaired in the 1990s, and removed in 2002 due to failing structure. This was not the first time the tower of a church building had incurred a cost to the society. After the Church of the Messiah was built in 1864, the tower on that building settled. As a result, it had to be taken down and entirely rebuilt along with the front of the church at a cost of $15,000. In 1956, the

Chicago Children's Choir Uniting Voices Chicago (formerly the Chicago Children's Choir) is a non-profit organization, founded in 1956 at First Unitarian Church of Chicago. Organization Founded in Hyde Park in 1956, Uniting Voices has grown from one choir into a network ...

was founded in the church by assistant minister Christopher Moore.

Notable members

* James Luther Adams *

Timuel Black Timuel Dixon Black Jr. (December 7, 1918 – October 13, 2021) was an American educator, civil rights activist, historian and author. A native of Alabama, Black was raised in Chicago, Illinois, and studied the city's African-American history. He ...

Ralph Wendell Burhoe Ralph Wendell Burhoe (May 21 Social Security Death Index or June 21, 1911 – May 8, 1997) was an important twentieth-century pioneer interpreter of the importance of religion for a scientific and technological world. He was awarded the Templeton Pr ...

(interred in the crypt) * Dolores Cross *

Frank Knight Frank Hyneman Knight (November 7, 1885 – April 15, 1972) was an American economist who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the founders of the Chicago School. Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, George S ...

(interred in the crypt) * Horatio G. Loomis * Bradford Lyttle * Ebenezer Peck *

Toni Preckwinkle Toni Lynn Preckwinkle (née Reed; born March 17, 1947) is an American politician and the incumbent County Board president in Cook County, Illinois, United States. She was elected to her first term as president of the Cook County Board of Commis ...

Hans Gustav Güterbock Hans Gustav Güterbock (May 27, 1908 – March 29, 2000) was a Germany, German-Americans, American Hittitologist. Born and trained in Germany, his career was ended with the rise of the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage, and he was forced to re ...

(interred in the crypt) * John Charles Haines * Morton D. Hull (interred in the crypt) * Shailer Mathews (interred in the crypt) * Curtis W. Reese (interred in the crypt) * Von Ogden Vogt (interred in the crypt) * Y. C. Wong (interred in the crypt)

Senior ministers

* 1839–1844. Joseph Harrington Jr. * 1846–1849. William Adam (minister) * 1849–1857. Rush Rhees Shippen * 1857–1859. George F. Noyes * 1861–1864 Charles B. Thomas * 1866–1874. Robert Laird Collier * 1876–1881. Brooke Herford * 1883–1891. David Utter * 1891–1901. William Wallace Fenn * 1901–1923. William Hansen Pulsford * 1925–1944. Von Ogden Vogt * 1944–1962. Leslie T. Pennington * 1963–1968. Jack Kent * 1968–1969. John Robinson (interim) * 1969–1978. Jack Mendelsohn * 1980–1986. Duke Gray * 1988–1991. Tom Chulak * 1993–1998. Terasa Cooley * 1999–2011. Nina Grey * 2011–2013. Barbara Gadon (interim) * 2013–2021. Teresa and David Schwartz * 2023-present. David Messner

Ministers-at-large

* 1860–1863.

Robert Collyer image:Robert Collyer 1880.jpg, Robert Collyer in 1880 image:Robert Collyer 1903.jpg, Robert Collyer in 1903 Robert Collyer (December 8, 1823 – November 30, 1912) was an American Unitarianism, Unitarian clergyman. Biography Collyer was born ...

(minister-at-large) * George Sikes (minister-at-large) * 1977–present. W. David Arksey (minister-at-large)

References

FURTHER READING Alan Seaburg, The Unitarian Pope, Brooke Herford's Ministry in Chicago and Boston, 1876–1892, 2015

External links

Official Website
{{Coord, 41, 47, 30.0, N, 87, 35, 49.0, W, region:US-IL_type:landmark, display=title Churches in Chicago Unitarian Universalism in Illinois 19th-century Unitarian Universalist church buildings Unitarian Universalist churches in Illinois Religious organizations established in 1836 1836 establishments in Illinois Gothic Revival architecture in Illinois Hyde Park, Chicago