Reverend Joan Montagnes is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo. She gave WBFO a tour.
"Welcome to our sanctuary," Montagnes said. "It is an example of English country Gothic Revival, which means that it's got all sorts of curly cues and Brussels sprouts coming out of wood, and it looks very high church except it’s more horizontal and cozy. It has a lot of influence from the Arts and Crafts movement as well."
The church here at the corner of Elmwood Avenue and West Ferry took two years to build and opened in 1906. The sanctuary’s Gothic Revival style with Arts and Crafts influences reflects an embrace of honest handcraftsmanship and truth to material, structure, and function.
"I will draw your attention to our stained-glass windows," Montagnes said. "They are clear glass. They have color, but the pure light of the Divine comes in to visit each individual just as the pure light comes through the windows. We understand that the Divine visits every heart here."
The aesthetics also recall the design movements’ intertwined social criticism — a rejection of the dehumanizing effects of Industrial Age mass production. Such reformist principles continue to echo in the UU Church today in the congregation’s work for social justice and inclusion.
"The Unitarian Universalists believe that every person is precious, inherently worthy and dignified and that we are connected in mystery and miracle to each other, to our wider and wider communities, and ultimately to the universe," Montagnes said. "It is our responsibility — we are obliged to work for justice. So, in the Unitarian Universalist Church, we will say that love is the doctrine of our church and service is its prayer."
The Unitarian and Universalist churches in Buffalo were organized several years after the opening of the Erie Canal. Millard Fillmore was a charter member of the Unitarians. Eight years after completing his term in the White House, he would host President-elect Abraham Lincoln as a guest in his church pew. A historical plaque commemorating the occasion is displayed outside the original church building at the corner of Franklin and West Eagle, now called the Lincoln Building. The site of the first Universalist church in Buffalo today is a parking lot.
The two churches merged locally in 1953 and began services here on Elmwood. Montagnes is the first female settled minister in the congregation’s history, but, she says, women have been ordained ministers since the time of the Civil War.
"I'm the first woman to be called to this congregation in its 190-year history," Montagnes said. "And we've been ordaining women since 1863."
On Pride Sunday, the UU Church held a service called “Loud and Proud.” As a prelude, music director Jessie Downs paid tribute to the late Tina Turner, a gay ally and icon, singing a soulful rendition of the Pride anthem “Proud Mary.”
Montagnes led the congregation in singing “If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It” from the sing-along children’s book by Lil Miss Hot Mess. And the church’s music ensemble gave a moving performance of “The Origin of Love” from the queer punk rock musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."
"So here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, we have a legacy music program," Montagnes said. "We definitely consider music one of the three or four arms of our life here, the others being social justice, religious education programming for all ages, and also worship, and music is part of the worship, but it has its own life as well. So, our music program lifts our spirits and inspires us, and transforms us, and we are in it to win it with the music, that we just love it."
Bobby Withrow, the church’s current board president, sang Greg Holden’s “Boys in the Street,” an imagined account by a straight singer-songwriter of a father coming to accept his gay son.
"I’m a little bit at odds with myself because I was fully accepted by my family when I came out," Withrow said. "I’ve had a loving church family for years before we moved here, too. So, for me, it’s singing a song to sort of honor the other people in the LGBTQ+ community who have not been accepted by their families and who have not been accepted by their friends and society at large. So, for me, I’m trying to channel that, especially our older members who, when support wasn’t as strong versus what it is now."
The UU Church of Buffalo is going through a transition now. Reverend Joan is retiring this summer, and an interim minister has recently been appointed. Doug Sherman, a retired newspaper editor whom you’re likely to see on Sundays at the welcome table for newcomers, headed the search committee. He says one of the things his group had to do was sell the church to interim candidates.
"Basically, what we said was, it was a transition of joy," Sherman said. "The synopsis was that we are a stable church. We are a growing church. We have defied the norm. Our religious education program has almost tripled in size. Financially, we're all stressed. I don't think we're any different in that regard. And we have this old church that needs a lot of work and a lot of money. But, we sell ourselves as being a dynamic congregation in a diverse city, and why wouldn’t you want to live here?"