Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Cities

New York

Also Known As New York City The full name of the city, as distinct from the state. · New Yorker
United States

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

New York has been the entry point for most of the religious traditions that reached the United States by sea, and it holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel, shaped by successive Sephardic, German and Eastern European migrations and by the Hasidic communities of Brooklyn. Harlem's churches produced much of American gospel music, and the Nation of Islam's Temple Number Seven there was Malcolm X's base. The first Hare Krishna temple in the West opened on Second Avenue in 1966, and after the 1965 immigration act the city gained Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Muslim communities on a scale it had not held before.

Facts
Attributions
Tradition
Dutch Reformed Christianity first, with the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657 an early colonial argument for toleration; then Anglican and Catholic churches, the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and congregations of nearly every tradition the twentieth century brought to the city 2
Origins
Founded
Founded as New Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company in 1625 and taken by the English in 1664 1
Traditions
Sacred and Liturgical Languages
Dutch, then English, with Hebrew and Yiddish, Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, Arabic and many others in its congregations 3
Learn More
The Port of Entry

In 1654 a ship carrying twenty three Jewish refugees from the fall of Dutch Brazil reached New Amsterdam. The governor asked permission to expel them; the Dutch West India Company, some of whose shareholders were Jewish, refused, and told him to let them stay provided they cared for their own poor. The congregation founded then, Shearith Israel, still exists, which makes the oldest Jewish community in North America older than the English colony that replaced the Dutch one.

Everything else arrived the same way. German Jews came in the middle of the nineteenth century and built the Reform congregations of upper Manhattan; eastern European Jews arrived in millions after 1881 and filled the Lower East Side with synagogues, study houses, Yiddish theatres and newspapers. After 1945 Hasidic survivors rebuilt courts that had been destroyed in Europe, transplanting them whole: Satmar in Williamsburg, and Chabad in Crown Heights, whose emissaries now operate in more than a hundred countries and within which the question of whether the last rebbe was the messiah caused a serious rupture after his death in 1994.

The city holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel. It was also the first Anglican foothold in the colony, with Trinity Church chartered in 1697, and it became the great Irish and Italian Catholic city of the country, with a cathedral on Fifth Avenue built for a population that had arrived poor.

Harlem, and What Arrived After 1965

The Great Migration moved southern black churches north, and Harlem became their capital. Abyssinian Baptist grew into one of the largest Protestant congregations in the country and sent its minister to Congress; storefront churches filled the side streets; and the gospel music that developed in these buildings reshaped American religious singing. Father Divine's Peace Mission ran banquets and businesses on a theology that identified its leader with God and an insistence on integrated membership that was extraordinary for the 1930s.

The Nation of Islam's Temple Number Seven in Harlem became the base of Malcolm X, its minister from the mid 1950s and the reason the movement grew from hundreds to tens of thousands. He broke with it in 1964, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, wrote that seeing Muslims of every colour worshipping together had changed his view of race, and was murdered in February 1965 at a meeting hall in Washington Heights.

That same year Congress removed the national origins quotas, and the religious map of the city was redrawn within a generation. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in 1965, chanted in a park on the Lower East Side and opened the first Hare Krishna temple in the West in a storefront on Second Avenue. Hindu temples were built in Queens from the 1970s, Chinese Buddhist temples in Chinatown and Flushing, and mosques serving South Asian, Arab, West African and African American congregations across all five boroughs.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names New York directly: "the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York from 1 to 4 July 2022 at the New York Hilton Midtown, its dates, host organizations, roughly twelve hundred attendees from sixteen nations, its theme..."

This source names New York directly: "for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, publishes and analyzes two cuneiform astrological tablets in the British Museum (BM 36326 and BM 36628 with joins) that carry the..."

This source names New York directly: "and this State University of New York Press book is his foundational scholarly study proposing a defining analytic framework for Western esotericism as a field of academic study, identifying its..."

Source Access to Western EsotericismAntoine Faivre

This source names New York directly: "Rice, published by the State University of New York Press in 2017 with a paperback edition in 2018."

Source Alan Watts - In the Academy: Essays and LecturesAlan Watts, edited by Peter J. Columbus and Donadrian L. Rice

This source names New York directly: "Congregational Church of South Butler, New York, performed by the Methodist minister Luther Lee after Congregational clergy present proved reluctant, and her resignation a year later over..."

Asceticism, Sources

This source names New York directly: "academic collection drawn from a 1993 New York conference bringing together scholars of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Indian and Zoroastrian ascetic practice."

Source AsceticismVincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (eds.)

This source names New York directly: "Press, Agence France Presse and The New York Times, on the Japanese government's pursuit of new legislation to control Aum Shinrikyo after its petition to dissolve the group under the Subversive..."

This source names New York directly: "Humphrey Noyes had built at Oneida, New York after founding the community there in 1848."

This source names New York directly: "law, and this State University of New York Press book is her academic study of how Sunni jurisprudence on ritual purity, ghusl, wudu and tayammum, actually developed historically within the..."

This source names New York directly: "Chelkowski, New York University Press 1979, collects the proceedings of an international symposium on Ta'ziyeh held at the 1976 Shiraz Festival of Arts."

Source Chelkowski (ed.), Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in IranPeter J. Chelkowski (editor)

This source names New York directly: "A New York Times report by Douglas Frantz on the Church of Scientology's December 1997 disclosure of its 1993 IRS settlement, including the 12.5 million dollar payment that accompanied the church's..."

This source names New York directly: "by Clare Fitzgerald, published by New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, checked directly at its own URL."

This source names New York City directly: "the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City in 1876."

Source Creed and DeedFelix Adler

This source names New York directly: "on modern witchcraft, based in upstate New York."

This source names New York directly: "published by State University of New York Press in 1995, is a peer reviewed academic monograph examining the Mahayana Buddhist influences on an early and foundational Advaita Vedanta text."

This source names New York directly: "Nona Brooks in 1931 and became minister of New York's First Church of Divine Science, also called the Church of the Healing Christ, succeeding Rev."

Source Emmet Fox (Divine Science Ministers Association biographical entry)Divine Science Ministers Association; no individual page author credited.

This source names New York directly: "major market affiliates including WMCA New York, WFIL Philadelphia, WAVA Washington D.C., KKHT Houston, WNIV Atlanta and KPDQ Portland, alongside additional independent Christian radio affiliates."

This source names New York directly: "Reflections, published by New York University Press in 1970, is a foundational work of post-Holocaust Jewish theology by a philosopher who was himself a Holocaust survivor, addressing how Jewish..."

This source names New York directly: "the 1970s, and this book, published by New York University Press, is an academic sociological study of how the movement changed internally, particularly around its handling of a child abuse crisis..."

Source Hare Krishna TransformedE. Burke Rochford Jr.

This source names New York directly: "Zeller's Heaven's Gate, America's UFO Religion, published by New York University Press in 2014, is the only full length scholarly monograph on Heaven's Gate, the group whose 1997 mass suicide drew..."

Source Heaven's Gate: America's UFO ReligionBenjamin E. Zeller

This source names New York directly: "She held a doctorate in psychology from New York University and published conventional academic research both before and during the years in which she wrote the Course."

Source Helen Schucman (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Hinduism, Religions

The first Hare Krishna temple in the West opened on Second Avenue in 1966.

Islam, Religions

The Nation of Islam's Temple Number Seven in Harlem was Malcolm X's base.

This source names New York directly: "The New York Times once called him "the nation's most influential evangelical leader." He also founded the Family Research Council in 1981 and Family Policy Alliance in 2004, and after departing..."

This source names New York directly: "Carolina, and died July 17, 1967 in New York."

Source John Coltrane (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "founding, covering the rural New York and New England culture that shaped Joseph Smith and the church he organized on 6 April 1830 at Fayette, New York."

Source Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of MormonismRichard L. Bushman

This source names New York directly: "in Fayette, New York, with six men present."

Source Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of MormonismRichard L. Bushman

This source names New York directly: "Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck, both New York Times bestsellers, and curates The Wild Unknown arts collective with her husband Arjan Miranda."

Source Kim Krans (Penguin Random House author page)Penguin Random House

This source names New York directly: "her deck The Wild Unknown Tarot as a New York Times bestseller."

Source Kim Krans (Penguin Random House author page)Penguin Random House

This source names New York directly: "in the religiously restless upstate New York of the 1820s, published the Book of Mormon in March 1830, a scripture he said he had translated from golden plates shown to him by an angel."

Source Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 1, The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsthe holders' own account

This source names New York directly: "book length account of the New York Spiritualist community, built on Wicker's own time living in and reporting from the town, interviewing mediums and residents about their practice and belief."

This source names New York directly: "book, published by State University of New York Press, presents newly translated Qing dynasty tai chi texts alongside Wile's own historical analysis of their authorship and transmission, correcting..."

This source names New York directly: "across Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin signed a constitution founding the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States."

This source names New York directly: "Faraone and Dirk Obbink and published by Oxford University Press in New York in 1991, is a foundational edited scholarly volume in the modern academic study of ancient Greek magic, including..."

Source Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and ReligionChristopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (editors)

This source names New York directly: "Dutton in New York and Routledge and Kegan Paul in London, is the primary narrative source for Gurdjieff's own account of his formative travels."

Source Meetings with Remarkable MenG. I. Gurdjieff

This source names New York directly: "Church's 1844 General Conference in New York, delegates confronted Bishop James O."

Source Methodist Episcopal Church, South (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "She agreed to a test in New York with a pass threshold set in advance, matching seven people to their known conditions, and matched four where five were required."

Source Testing NatashaRay Hyman

This source names New York directly: "tied to the same waves that reshaped New York across the river, and the state today holds one of the country's most religiously diverse populations relative to its size, including significant Hindu..."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

This source names New York directly: "Upstate New York became known as the Burned over District for the intensity of revivalism that swept it in the early nineteenth century, and the region produced an unusual concentration of new..."

This source names New York directly: "of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens, New York."

Source Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd editionMichael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (eds.)

This source names New York directly: "of the richest states for it outside New York."

Source The Oxford Handbook of MormonismTerryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (eds.)

This source names New York directly: "Universalist Association at Malone, New York on 25 June 1863, becoming the first American woman ordained with the full authority of a national religious denomination behind her."

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 1987."

Source Palkhi: A Pilgrimage to PandharpurD. B. Mokashi; trans. Philip C. Engblom

This source names New York directly: "and this State University of New York Press book is his academic biography of Paschal Beverly Randolph, the nineteenth century Black American spiritualist, Rosicrucian and originator of Western sex..."

This source names New York directly: "Court for the Southern District of New York decision, issued October 24, 2003, in litigation brought by the Foundation for Inner Peace and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles against the New..."

Source Penguin Books USA v. New Christian Church of Full Endeavor, 288 F. Supp. 2d 544 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)United States District Court, Southern District of New York

This source names New York directly: "Kentucky, replacing the separate New York and Atlanta offices the two predecessor churches had kept."

Source Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "culture from its 1880 landing in New York onward, examining how the movement borrowed the idioms of popular entertainment, brass bands, uniforms, street preaching and its own illustrated periodical..."

This source names New York directly: "Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York."

This source names New York directly: "and music company founded in 2006 in New York by practitioners of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in China in 1992."

This source names New York directly: "founding at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York by Dr."

This source names New York directly: "signed confession, published in the New York World on 21 October 1888, is a primary document: her own public statement, delivered on stage, that the Fox sisters' rappings had been produced by..."

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 1995 in the McGill Studies in the History of Religions series, is a scholarly critical translation and study of an anthology of ginans..."

This source names New York directly: "Charles Inglis, a Loyalist whose New York church had been burned during the American Revolution, was consecrated at Lambeth Palace on 12 August 1787 as the first Anglican bishop of Nova Scotia and..."

Source A History of Global AnglicanismKevin Ward

This source names New York directly: "Baha'i teacher, had begun classes in New York before moving to Chicago in 1894, where the religious enthusiasm generated by the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions gave his teaching its first..."

Source Baha'i Faith In The United States (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "by the denominational synod meeting in New York" to publish a monthly periodical from Hackensack, New Jersey."

Source The Banner (Magazine) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "by the denominational synod meeting in New York, New York in June, 1866, to publish a monthly periodical" called The Banner of Truth from Hackensack, New Jersey; that de Baun sold it in 1903 to..."

Source The Banner (Magazine) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "of Ethiopian Jewish history, and this New York University Press book is his standard scholarly history of the Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community, from its earliest documented period through..."

This source names New York directly: "Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New York first sought to worship separately in 1796 and incorporated their own congregation in 1801, and before the young church had a single ordained minister..."

Source Our Church, The A.M.E. Zion Church (amezion.org)The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

This source names New York directly: "Buddhism, and this State University of New York Press book is his scholarly study of the life and thought of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, the founder of the Jonang school's distinctive shentong..."

This source names New York directly: "Buddhism, and this State University of New York Press book is his academic survey of Theravada Buddhist belief and practice across Southeast Asia, covering both textual doctrine and the lived..."

Source The Buddhist World of Southeast AsiaDonald K. Swearer

This source names New York directly: "the Cardiff Giant, the Cooperstown, New York museum that holds and displays the famous 1869 hoax figure."

Source The Cardiff Giant (The Farmers' Museum)The Farmers' Museumthe holders' own account

This source names New York directly: "book, published by State University of New York Press, examines the doctrine of spanda, or vibration, central to Kashmir Shaiva philosophy and practice, working from Sanskrit primary texts and their..."

This source names New York directly: "Designed by the artist David Wilson of South New Berlin, New York and fabricated at D."

Source Community of Christ, "Independence Temple Self-Guided Tour" (west entrance window)Community of Christthe holders' own account

This source names New York directly: "from Syracuse University Press, A New York State Study, is the standard scholarly account of the Six Nations during the American Revolution, covering the Oneida's break from the other five nations..."

Source The Iroquois in the American RevolutionBarbara Graymont

This source names New York directly: "The New York Times called it the best selling nonfiction book of the 1970s in the United States; reported sales reached roughly ten million copies by the end of that decade and have since been put..."

Source The Late Great Planet Earth (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "Carlson's authorship, the 1970 Zondervan publication, the New York Times's characterization of it as the decade's best selling nonfiction title, its dispensationalist content and specific..."

Source The Late Great Planet Earth (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "short stories of 1920s and 1930s New York gamblers and gangsters, and stating that Sergeant Sarah Brown's military title "is an obvious reference to the Salvation Army." Also covers the show's..."

This source names New York directly: "in present-day Dutchess County, New York and preceding further North American missions, including a Labrador settlement at Nain in 1771 and a Cherokee mission at Springplace, Georgia in 1801."

Source Moravian Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "and a Mohican mission at Shekomeko, New York in 1740."

Source Moravian Church (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 2002, is the standard scholarly monograph on the emergence of the six syllable mantra Om Mani Padme Hum in India around the middle of the first..."

This source names New York directly: "two predecessor churches had kept in New York and Atlanta."

This source names New York directly: "Church of the Healing Christ in New York."

Source The Sermon on the Mount (book) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "is a scholarly account of the 1869 New York fraud trial of spirit photographer William Mumler, who was acquitted for lack of proof though never rehabilitated in public opinion."

This source names New York directly: "based communal group active in New York from 1957 to 1992 whose leadership exercised extensive control over members' personal and family lives under a stated ideology of radical individualism."

This source names New York directly: "Shaivism, and this State University of New York Press monograph is an academic study of the Kaula Tantric tradition as systematized by the tenth century philosopher Abhinavagupta in his encyclopedic..."

This source names New York directly: "Publishing Association in Syracuse, New York, running to 690 numbered hymns."

Source The Wesleyan Methodist Hymnal (Hymnary.org)Wesleyan Methodist Publishing Association

This source names New York directly: "from the society's 1875 founding in New York through Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky's move of its headquarters to Adyar in 1882."

Source Theosophical Society Adyar (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names New York directly: "its history from the society's 1875 New York founding through later organizational splits and its present Adyar affiliated structure headquartered in Wheaton, Illinois."

Source Theosophical Society in America (Theosophy Wiki)Theosophy Wiki contributors

This source names New York directly: "Breslaw is a historian, and this New York University Press book is her academic study of Tituba, the enslaved woman at the center of the Salem witchcraft accusations, focusing specifically on the..."

This source names New York directly: "of new religious movements, and this New York University Press monograph is her scholarly study of Transcendental Meditation and comparable Hindu-inspired meditation movements as a distinct category..."

This source names New York directly: "record of Trinity Church Cemetery in New York is an active federal heritage record carrying direct institutional authority as the agency responsible for documenting sites of national historic..."

This source names New York directly: "Strongest in rural New England and upstate New York through the nineteenth century, it developed a strong tradition of social reform activism, including early ordination of women ministers, and..."

Source The Unitarians and the UniversalistsDavid Robinson

This source names New York directly: "in 1805, though his family moved to New York before the visions that founded Mormonism began, and a granite monument at his birthplace now marks the site as a Latter day Saint pilgrimage destination."

Source The Oxford Handbook of MormonismTerryl L. Givens and Philip L. Barlow (eds.)

This source names New York directly: "the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, the Accademia Carrara and the Colleoni family in Bergamo."

This source names New York directly: "Its authority rests on extensive original interview fieldwork and New York University Press's standard scholarly peer review."

This source names New York directly: "Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v."

This source names New York directly: "publisher's origin as Samuel Weiser's New York occult bookshop, its growth into a dedicated publisher of esoteric, occult and pagan texts, and its later acquisition and continuation as Red Wheel..."

Source Weiser Books: A Brief HistoryGuest Contributor

This source names New York directly: "Wall Heritage Foundation Inc, the New York-registered 501(c)(3) fundraising affiliate that supports restoration and educational work at the Western Wall, most recently reporting 12,790,747 dollars..."

This source names New York directly: "by the Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery in New York, its first woman minister; and on the Presbyterian Church in the United States (the southern body) reaching the same decision in 1964, with Rachel..."

This source names New York directly: "published by the State University of New York Press in 2021 in its Hindu Studies series, is an ethnography of astrological practice in Banaras built on fieldwork and interviews with fifty working..."

This source names New York directly: "the Zoroastrian Association of Greater New York hosted the twelfth World Zoroastrian Congress at the New York Hilton Midtown, the faith's first congress held in the United States since 2000."

Contained In

Sacred To

Harlem's churches produced much of American gospel music.

Judaism, Religions

New York holds the largest Jewish population of any city outside Israel.

Spread Events Here

Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Entries: Judaism in North America; Nation of Islam; New Religious MovementsView the Source
3. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X with Alex Haley, Grove Press, 1965
Hare Krishna Transformed
E. Burke Rochford Jr., New York University Press, 2007View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.