On the north side of Fifty-Third Street just west of Fifth Avenue, the stone tower and reredos of Saint Thomas Church rise between Midtown's glass towers. From the outside, the building reads as a transplanted fragment of medieval Europe; from the inside, with its nave vault ninety-five feet above the floor and its stone columns supporting load-bearing rib vaulting, it produces the acoustics that have made the church one of the most listened-to sacred spaces in the English-speaking world. Saint Thomas is an Episcopal parish in the Diocese of New York, the home of the world-renowned Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys and the Saint Thomas Choir School, and a working Anglo-Catholic church that has celebrated Mass every day of the year since 1824.
A House of Stone in the Middle of Manhattan
Saint Thomas is built entirely of stone, according to medieval construction principles. The nave vault reaches ninety-five feet above the floor, and the columns, arches, and ribs are arranged to do exactly the structural work they appear to do, without any modern space-spanning steel. That construction is also what gives the building its particular sound: stone reflecting tone back to the listener in the way that Gothic churches have always done. The building itself is an instrument, and the music program has been designed around it.
The parish marked its bicentenary in October 2023, two hundred years after the founding of an earlier Saint Thomas Church downtown. The current building, designed by the firm of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson in a French Gothic style, was completed in stages and remains one of the finest Gothic churches in North America. Inside, the interior is dense with carved reredos, shrines, and a Chantry Chapel whose reredos depicts the wedding feast at Cana. A memorial in the church carries words from Queen Elizabeth II on the loss of British and Commonwealth lives in the September 11 attacks, the phrase from which the parish drew the title for its annual interfaith vigil.
Mass Every Day of the Year
The single most distinctive thing about Saint Thomas, in practice, is that the doors are open and a Mass is offered every day. On Mondays through Saturdays, the day begins with the church opening at 8:30 a.m., and at noon prayers and intercessions are offered at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fifth Avenue. These prayers draw on the Diocesan and Anglican Cycle of Prayer for dioceses around the world, the Angelus, and intercessions left in the church or submitted online. The recitation is followed by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Both parts of the noon service are audio livestreamed, and the list of intercessions grows across the week, so a prayer sent in over the weekend is prayed from Monday through Saturday.
On Saturdays, the rhythm shifts slightly: a priest hears confessions, offers spiritual advice, and provides healing ministry at 11:00 a.m., the Rosary and Shrine Prayers follow at 11:30, and the noon Mass is celebrated as the Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary at 12:05 p.m. Throughout the week, an urgent pastoral need can be routed through a Pastoral Care Line that connects callers to a priest.
Sunday at Saint Thomas
Sunday is the day the building performs its public ministry most visibly, and the day that brings three quite different congregations through the same door.
The day begins early with a Said Mass at 7:45 a.m. At 9:00 a.m. the Sung Eucharist, celebrated in contemporary-language Rite II, is the service designed with children and families in mind. It is shorter than the later Mass, and the Noble Singers, the parish children's choir for treble voices ages five through fourteen, sing during the academic year. Children are welcomed into liturgical roles, and adult leaders work alongside them in the nave. After the 9:00 a.m. Mass, coffee hour is held in the Parish House at 10:00 a.m., and Sunday School, the Children and Families 10:00 a.m. Formation, and an adult Sunday Theology Talk run in parallel.
At 11:00 a.m. the Festal or Solemn Eucharist is the principal service of the week, sung by the Choir of Men and Boys during the academic year and accompanied by one of the church's two organs. Coffee hour follows at 12:30 p.m., and a guided tour of the church begins at the same hour on most Sundays. At 4:00 p.m. the Festal or Solemn Evensong fills the nave again with the Choir of Men and Boys singing the office of Evening Prayer in its full choral setting. During the academic term the 4:00 p.m. Evensong is the service most often chosen for special occasions; the Archbishop of Canterbury preached at this hour on her first visit to the United States. Monthly, a Korean Holy Eucharist (한국어 감사성찬례) follows the afternoon schedule, with a Korean Pilgrims' Course meeting alongside it.
Children and families register before participating in Nursery or Sunday School programs, and parents are asked to remain on site when their children are in either program. The Nursery itself is open from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on most Sundays of the year. Parents of babies and toddlers are welcome in the Nursery throughout the year; during term time, when two staff members are on duty, parents may leave a child in the Nursery during Mass and Coffee Hour and are given a pager so they can be reached.
The Choir of Men and Boys and the Choir School
The thing that has made Saint Thomas famous is its music, and at the heart of that music is the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. It is one of only three choirs of its kind in the world, alongside Westminster Abbey, where the choristers make up the whole of the student body and live on site. The treble voices of the choir come from the boys of the Saint Thomas Choir School, a boarding middle school for boys in grades three through eight at 202 West 58th Street, a few blocks from the church.
The Choir of Men and Boys sings the 11:00 a.m. Festal Eucharist and the 4:00 p.m. Evensong on Sundays, and during the academic term sings Choral Evensong four times a week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., with a shortened Mass at the High Altar following at 6:15 p.m. The choir also sings for major civic services, including the annual interfaith 9/11 vigil, and has appeared on BBC Daily Service broadcasts. Recent recordings available in the church shop include choral and organ music of Kenneth Leighton, the complete organ works of Nicolaus Bruhns paired with Vincent Lübeck, the music of Calvin Hampton, and a collection of treble solos.
The Director of Music is Richard Tanner, who holds the title of the Nancy B. and John B. Hoffmann Organist and Director of Music. A former chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral, organ scholar at Exeter College Oxford, and Director of Music at Blackburn Cathedral and Rugby School, he directs the men's and boys' voices and oversees the broader music program. He is joined by Jeremiah Stephenson, Associate Organist, who arrived after nine years as Associate Director of Music at All Saints Margaret Street in London and who is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music; Jackson Merrill, Assistant Organist and Associate for Musical Studies; and the 2025-2027 Organ Scholar Bethany Dame. John Ramseyer, a tenor, doubles as a Gentleman of the Choir and Concert Series Manager; Mike Williams serves as Music Librarian Associate. Angelo Sylvester, who founded SingOUT Cincy and has worked with choirs in Cincinnati, came to Saint Thomas as Director of Musical Outreach and Chorister Recruitment.
The Rev. Dr. Alison Turner, the Rector's wife, serves as Dean of the Choir School, having previously served as Associate for Children and Family Ministry and as Choir School Chaplain during the pandemic. Her doctoral work at the General Theological Seminary focused on the safeguarding of children.
The Noble Singers and the Girl Chorister Course
Alongside the boys' choir, the parish runs the Noble Singers Children's Choir for treble voices from ages five to fourteen. The Noble Singers sing each Sunday at the 9:00 a.m. Mass during the academic year, rehearse on Thursday afternoons, and are an entry point into the choral tradition for children who sing in the parish rather than the school. A separate Saint Thomas Girl Chorister Course extends the same tradition to girls; it has its own giving page and supports the development of a parallel girls' choir.
Children who wish to take on roles inside the liturgy are invited to train as Youth Acolytes (age seven and up) and Lectors. Junior Readers begin at age seven; Youth Lectors are auditioned around the time of Confirmation. Acolytes progress through roles that include ringing the Sanctus bells, serving as boat bearer, preparing incense, and serving as crucifer in procession.
Music Beyond the Liturgy
The church is also a concert venue. The Concerts at Saint Thomas series brings organists, vocalists, and ensembles to the building across a season that runs through the academic year, and tickets are sold through an outside ticketing platform. Recent and upcoming programming has included Romantic organ masterworks and a French and English program titled Entente Cordiale. The Sunday Recital Series offers a weekly recital in the nave, typically preceding the 4:00 p.m. Evensong during the academic term. Recordings of past concerts are available to view online.
Supporters of the concert series become Friends of Music, with priority seating for the season and invitations to social and educational events around the music. Three of the four organ preludes recorded before a recent 9/11 vigil service - works by César Franck, Brenda Portman, and Jeanne Demessieux - illustrate the kind of repertoire that the building invites and that the music office programs. The Choirmasters' Conference is an annual gathering of those who lead church music programs, hosted at Saint Thomas.
Neighbor to Neighbor
Saint Thomas's outreach program is rooted in the parish's longer history. The current initiative is called Neighbor to Neighbor. Volunteers meet at the cloisters of the church on 53rd Street at 8:30 a.m. on Saturdays to set up and serve a breakfast of coffee, tea, pastries, and fresh fruit to neighbors who come by between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. The model is the same as the Soup Kitchen that the parish ran for decades, which for years prepared approximately 325 bagged lunches and distributed them on the streets of midtown Manhattan. The current program is supported through the church's annual giving menu under its own designation.
Pastoral care for neighbors in need is coordinated by Linda Morfi, the parish's Pastoral Care Coordinator, who has worked at Saint Thomas since 1998. Saint Thomas is one of three Midtown congregations that together place two full-time social workers and a chaplain whose work focuses on the homeless on the streets of that part of Midtown Manhattan; the other two partners are St. Patrick's Cathedral and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The parish also makes grants, through a program administered by the Vestry, to not-for-profit organizations within the Diocese of New York working with the elderly, immigrants, asylum seekers, children, and the chronically ill.
The Pan-Asian Ministry and the Korean Service
Saint Thomas sits in one of the most diverse parts of New York City, and the parish runs a deliberate ministry among Asian Americans and recent arrivals from East and Southeast Asia. The Pan-Asian Ministry meets monthly on the fourth Sunday of each month for fellowship, and collaborates with the Episcopal Asian Supper Table (EAST) and the Episcopal Diocese of New York. The ministry is led by the Rev. Juyoung Prisca Lee-Pae, who was raised in a faithful Anglican family in Korea, where her great-grandfather was among the first generation of priests in the Anglican Church of Korea. She came to Saint Thomas after theological study at Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary.
A monthly Korean Holy Eucharist (한국어 감사성찬례) is celebrated on Sunday afternoons, and a Korean Pilgrims' Course, Exploring Anglican Spirituality, meets alongside it. Mother Lee-Pae also leads the Friday afternoon Contemplative Prayer service of Taizé songs, Centering Prayer, and Lectio Divina.
Adult Formation and Theologian in Residence
Theological education at Saint Thomas is taken seriously. The Theologian in Residence is the Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia, a former Benedictine monk who taught theology for nearly twenty years in France and at the Pontifical University of St. Anselm in Rome before becoming an Anglican and joining Saint Thomas in November 2022. His book Say It To God: In Search of Prayer was chosen as the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book for 2018, and his book on Saint Benedict won the First Place Spirituality Award from the Catholic Media Association in 2021. Fluent in English, French, and Italian, he leads Sunday Theology Talks, Theology Lectures, Thursday evening Theology Conversations, and the Pilgrims' Course, a comprehensive overview of the Christian faith as received in the Anglican tradition, taught by the Rector, that prepares adults for baptism and confirmation.
On Friday afternoons the Contemplative Prayer service draws on the Taizé community and the practice of Lectio Divina. On Friday lunchtimes a Weekly Bible Study led by Father Mark Brown meets by Zoom; the study has been working through the book of Ecclesiastes. A Young Adults Group gathers adults in their late teens, twenties, and thirties for spiritual formation, social gatherings, and volunteer opportunities. The Rector hosts a Senior Lunch for parishioners sixty-five and older several times a year.
Clergy and Pastoral Care
The Rector is the Rev. Canon Carl F. Turner, the thirteenth Rector of Saint Thomas, who arrived in July 2014 from the post of Canon Precentor of Exeter Cathedral. He chairs the Regional Committee for New York of the Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem, is a Grand Cross of the Order of Malta, and is chair of the Board of the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral in the United States. He has preached at HM Chapel Royal, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, and York Minster, and during his tenure Saint Thomas has completed a major capital campaign and a new organ, and celebrated the parish's bicentenary in October 2023.
The Vicar and Chief Operating Officer is the Rev. Matthew Moretz, a native of Augusta, Georgia, who was ordained in the Diocese of Georgia in 2006 and came to Saint Thomas in 2018. The Rev. Dr. Alison Turner serves as Dean of the Choir School. The Rev. Mark Schultz, an ordained priest since 2017 and a graduate of Berkeley Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, oversees pastoral care. The Rev. Preston Grissom, most recently a hospital chaplain and a Princeton Theological Seminary graduate, looks after Children and Family Ministry. The Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia is Theologian in Residence, and the Rev. Juyoung Prisca Lee-Pae is Associate for Pan-Asian Ministry.
Honorary clergy include the Rev. Andrew C. Mead, OBE, DD, Rector Emeritus; the Right Reverend Andrew R. St. John, DD, Bishop in Residence; the Rev. Mark Brown; the Rev. Canon Victor Conrado; the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee; the Rev. David F. McNeeley; the Rev. Stephen Morris; and the Rev. Thomas F. Pike.
Pastoral care at Saint Thomas includes spiritual counsel and direction with a priest; lay prayer ministers; visitation of the sick and homebound with the reserved sacrament, laying on of hands, and anointing with healing oil; the Sacrament of Confession; and the preparation of Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals. The parish has produced a Funeral and Memorial Workbook to help members think through and record their wishes.
The Choir School and the Girl Chorister Course
The Saint Thomas Choir School is a boarding middle school for boys in grades three through eight in the heart of Manhattan, educating the treble choristers of the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys. The school sits a short walk from the church at 202 West 58th Street and is supported in part by a scholarship fund, an annual appeal, and a separate set of giving opportunities. A separate Girl Chorister Course extends choral foundations to girls, with its own giving page and an associated Incarnation Camp. Both choirs feed into the wider music of the parish and the concert series.
Sacraments and the Shape of the Year
Saint Thomas teaches that there are seven sacraments, two of them dominical - Baptism and the Eucharist - and five ecclesiastical - Confirmation, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. Each is treated as an encounter with the real presence of Christ rather than a mere symbol, and each is offered in the setting of an Anglo-Catholic liturgy that uses the full range of the Prayer Book's ceremonial resources. The liturgical year is followed in full, with the colors of the seasons, the procession of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost observed throughout the church year.
Holy Week at Saint Thomas is, in practice, a sequence of high liturgies running from Palm Sunday through the Easter Vigil. The Sunday of the Patronal Feast, in honor of Saint Thomas the Apostle, falls in late September and has historically brought guest preachers from across the Anglican Communion to the High Altar.
The Building and the Concerts
Saint Thomas owns two significant instruments: the main organ at the High Altar, completed during Canon Turner's tenure and described as one of the finest new organs in the United States, and the Taylor-Boody organ, a smaller instrument occasionally used for prelude and recital repertoire. Both are featured in the Sunday Recital Series, in the organ recital calendar, and on recordings sold in the church shop.
The 2026-2027 concert season opened with Romantic organ masterworks and continues with choral and orchestral programs through the academic year. The Sunday Recital Series is one of the church's regular offerings during term time, and on most Sundays a guided tour of the building is offered at 12:30 p.m. Tour guides describe the history of the parish alongside its growth, the architectural and liturgical features, and the musical elements of the church.
Support and Membership
The parish's annual appeal is in its Bicentennial year, marking two hundred years of the church's life. Members of the Keystone Society give five thousand dollars or more annually to the church, the choir school, or both; in 2025, ninety-seven Keystone Society members contributed an aggregate of more than $1.14 million, or roughly seventy-four percent of the 2025 Annual Appeal total. The parish also maintains a Planned Giving program with a downloadable brochure and a Funeral and Memorial Workbook for members who wish to think ahead. Bruce Smith serves as Chief Advancement Officer and Adam MacDonald as Director of Development.
Becoming a member at Saint Thomas is described as straightforward: an inquiry by email or contact form opens a conversation about where the inquirer is on the journey, with the Pilgrims' Course often recommended as the next step toward baptism or confirmation. Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals are arranged through the parish office at 212-757-7013.