First Parish of Cambridge

I took an overnight flight from Las Vegas to Boston. The flight isn’t really that long at around five hours but because of the time of departure and the time difference, I would be arriving the next day. I got back to Boston at five in the morning, definitely very early. I would have another flight to catch but that would be in the afternoon so I have a bit to time to spare. I thought that I would try to visit one of the prominent landmarks in Boston but it is a bit outside of the city.

Harvard University is one of the most well known universities in the world. I didn’t know that Massachusetts are several of the top universities in the world and I hope to be able to visit some of them. The most accessible for me would be Harvard University which is just a train ride away from South Station. I wasn’t sure what to expect to see here since it is effectively just a school. My first landmark here was just outside the Harvard T Station. The First Parish of Cambridge has almost four hundred years of history behind it. Probably to remind people that Boston is one of the earliest colonies established in the Americas so there would be a lot of firsts here. Curiously, it doesn’t seem to be in the list of oldest churches in the United States.

Anyway, the current church is Unitarian Universalist. I won’t claim to understand what the belief is but it seems to have it’s roots in Protestantism. The rest I would leave to the reader to research. It eventually evolved to it current form. The founder of the church apparently used his influence to move Harvard College to where the parish is. This move eventually turned into what Harvard University is right now. It was originally outside the city but it is now in its own downtown. Looking at the church from the outside, I can see that there is a pride flag. I understand that this church is much more liberal compared to the conservative Catholicism that I know.

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