Church of the Transfiguration

Church of the Transfiguration, located on 25 Mott Street, is a historical institution that represents a centuries-old cause of helping immigrants of faith overcome language barriers through multilingual services. The first Lutherans to arrive in New York attended Dutch-speaking churches without issue. However, German Lutherans, who came to outnumber the Dutch population eight-to-one, were unable to petition for services in German, and in response, established their own German-speaking churches. Ironically, in the following decades, their English-speaking descendants experienced similar difficulties with a language barrier between themselves and their German-speaking forebears. In 1801, these English-speaking parishioners broke ground for their own church, which would eventually become the Church of the Transfiguration. The church has evolved from Lutheran to Episcopalian to Roman Catholic, and adapted its services for different immigrant groups over the years - first the Irish, then Italian, and finally the Chinese communities of the notorious “Five Points” neighborhood of lower Manhattan. Today, this parish serves an almost entirely Chinese American congregation. Services are held in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.