At the French Church of Saint Esprit, we think so. These two words together say a lot about us and how we came to be who we are today - a diverse family of faith, gathered from every corner of the globe and from many backgrounds, united by our love for the French language and by the spiritual values of tolerance, freedom, and liberty.

Our church holds a unique place in the history of the United States, and in the history of ecumenism. How we got here is a remarkable story.

The first Europeans who came to found New Amsterdam in 1624 included many French Calvinists, or Huguenots, and Walloons, French-speaking Protestants from Belgium. Both of these groups had previously fled to Holland to escape religious persecution in their home countries.

The French language was important enough to New Amsterdam's first residents that when Dutch church leaders picked the first clergyman to serve they new colony, they chose one of French origin, Jonas Michel. As soon as he arrived in the New World on April 7, 1628, he celebrated services in French as well as in Dutch.

The French-speaking population began to dwindle after New Amsterdam became New York in 1674, and Huguenots intermarried with English speakers. By 1802, many descendants of the early Huguenots had become Episcopalians, and so Saint Esprit's elders and members voted unanimously to join the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

But in light of Saint Esprit's heritage aa a refuge for those seeking religious freedom in the New World, the Episcopal Church granted two exceptions to the congregation. First, the worship service would always be held in French, as its founders had intended. Indeed, the Book of Common Prayer was translated into French for the first time for use by our congregation in 1804.

Second, any Christian would be welcome to worship as a member of Saint Esprit, regardless of denomination. This makes our congregation one of the first in the world to make an effort to build bridges between Christian communities,  more than a century before the inception of the modern ecumenical movement.

This is just one of the many surprises in our long and storied history. Click here to read more about our history over four centuries!