The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist was founded during the
Gold Rush era in 1857. In the 1880s, the church's third Rector was involved in founding the Mission District's
St. Luke's Hospital, at the time the only San-Francisco medical institution to treat the Chinese community. In the 1890s, the church erected a granite
neo-Byzantine basilica, which was dynamited in 1906 to form a firebreak during the great
San Francisco earthquake and fire. The current building dates to 1909, and is in the
architectural style known as "Tudor Lantern." In the late 1960s the church and its rectory and performance space became a hub of counterculture activity under the leadership of Rev. Albert O. Lott, hosting progressive theatre by the Pitschel Players, the "Wednesday Night Fights" in which the vestry engaged with the community on topics of contemporary interest, and various public events, including the wedding of
Country Joe McDonald, which was featured on the cover of the 1968
Together album by
Country Joe and the Fish. There was also an outpouring of musical creativity, notably original works written and produced by the then-choirmaster Jeff Davis, the
carillonist for the Berkeley, California carillon. In the 1970s, in reaction to the continuing deterioration of the neighborhood around the church caused by the erection of 1950's
housing projects, rector Winston Ching founded St. John's Educational Thresholds Center, a tutoring program for mission youth. In the 1970s and 1980s, the church's proximity to the
neighborhood of Castro allowed it to attract a large gay membership. Since that time, the church has been an advocate for
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in the larger
Anglican church. In 2007, the church celebrated its 150th anniversary. In March 2024, a suspected arson closed the church on
Good Friday. == References ==