page_title: Metropolitan Community Church
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Metropolitan Community Church / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Troy Perry in der Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Rochester (Minnesota), 2006 English: Troy Perry preaching at the Metropolitan Community Church in Rochester, Minnesota Polski: Troy Perry podczas nabożeństwa w Kościele MCC w Minnesocie w 2006 roku.
context_page_description: The Metropolitan Community Church, also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, is an international Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 37 countries, and the fellowship has a specific outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families and communities.
  The fellowship has Official Observer status with the World Council of Churches. The MCC has been denied membership in the US National Council of Churches, but many local MCC congregations are members of local ecumenical partnerships around the world and MCC currently belongs to several statewide councils of churches in the United States.
context_section_description: The first congregation was founded in Huntington Park, California by Troy Perry on October 6, 1968. This was a time when Christian attitudes toward homosexuality were almost universally unfavorable. The first congregation originally met in Perry's Huntington Park home. The church first gained publicity by ads taken out in The Advocate magazine.
  In 1969 the congregation had outgrown Perry's living room and moved to rented space at the Huntington Park Women's Club. It was at this point in time membership in the church grew to about 200 people. Due to discrimination the church was forced to move, and had a hard time finding a permanent place. During this period during the spring and summer of 1969 the church moved first to the Embassy Auditorium, and then a United Methodist Church for two weeks. The church ended up renting out the Encore Theatre in Hollywood from 1969 through 1971.
  Within months of the first worship service, Perry began receiving letters and visits from people who wanted to start Metropolitan Community Churches in other cities. MCC groups from eight U.S. cities were represented at the first General Conference in 1970: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Costa Mesa, California; Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; Kaneohe, Hawaii; and Dallas, Texas. An MCC group existed in Miami, Florida, but did not send a delegate.
  The church had its final move to a building it purchased at 2201 South Union Avenue in Los Angeles in early 1971. The building was consecrated on March 7, 1971. MCC worshiped there until January 27, 1973, when the building was destroyed by what the Fire Department called a fire "of suspicious origin."
  The MCC has grown since then to have a presence in 37 countries with 222 affiliated churches.  The largest presence is found in the United States, followed by Canada. The denomination continues to grow: In 2010, El Mundo reported that the first MCC congregation in Spain would be established in Madrid in October. It would be the first church to recognize and perform religious same-sex marriages in the country, as the Roman Catholic Church (the former state church) refuses to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies or adoptions.
  In 1972 Freda Smith became the first female minister in MCC, and was the first woman elected to the Board of Elders in 1973 at the fourth general conference in Atlanta, when the Board of Elders was expanded from four members to seven. Later MCC adopted gender inclusive language in its worship services.
  Perry served as moderator of the fellowship until 2005, when Nancy Wilson was elected moderator by the General Conference; she was formally installed in a special service at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on October 29, 2005. She is only the second person, and the first woman, to serve as moderator.
  In 2003, a scandal occurred involving the flagship of the church, as well as the largest gay church in the world, Cathedral of Hope, when former board member Terri Frey accused minister Michael S. Piazza of financial impropriety, an accusation that prompted the UFMCC to open an investigation. However, the investigation ended when the Cathedral's membership voted to disaffiliate from UFMCC with 88% support. In 2006, the Cathedral of Hope was received into membership in the United Church of Christ. The split cost UFMCC 9% of its membership, and 7% of its annual operating budget. Church members, including copastor Mona West, claimed that the vote was less about the investigation and more about the congregation's long-simmering frustration with the denomination, including the opinion that the denomination was focused too much on gay issues and hampered their desire to reach out to Dallas residents disaffected by conservative churches; as church member Michael Magnia explained: "The tie with MCC was more about gays and lesbians. You're going to have a difficult time getting even progressive heterosexuals to come to a church that is anchored to a gay and lesbian church."
  In 2011 the Good Shepherd Parish of the MCC was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Ha
caption: Perry at an MCC church in 2006
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