page_title: Reformed Church in America
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Reformed Church in America / History
caption_attribution_description: English: First Church in Albany on North Pearl Street in Albany, New York United States. Built in the period of 1797-1799, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
context_page_description: The Reformed Church in America is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 196,308 members. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church.
  The RCA is a member of the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Some parts of the denomination belong to the National Association of Evangelicals, the Canadian Council of Churches, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. The denomination is in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church, and United Church of Christ and is a denominational partner of the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
context_section_description: The early settlers in the Dutch colony of New Netherland first held informal meetings for worship. In 1628 Jonas Michaelius organized the first Dutch Reformed congregation in New Amsterdam, now New York City, called the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, now the Marble Collegiate Church. During Dutch rule, the RCA was the established church of the colony and was under the authority of the classis of Amsterdam.
  Even after the English captured the colony in 1664, all Dutch Reformed ministers were still trained in the Netherlands. Services in the RCA remained in Dutch until 1764. (Dutch language use faded thereafter until the new wave of Dutch immigration in the mid-19th century. This revived use of the language among Dutch descendants and in some churches.)
  In 1747 the church in the Netherlands had given permission to form an assembly in North America; in 1754, the assembly declared itself independent of the classis of Amsterdam. This American classis secured a charter in 1766 for Queens College (now Rutgers University) in New Jersey. In 1784 John Henry Livingston was appointed as professor of theology, marking the beginning of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.
  The Dutch-speaking community, including farmers and traders, prospered in the former New Netherland, dominating New York City, the Hudson Valley, and parts of New Jersey while maintaining a significant presence in southeastern Pennsylvania, southwestern Connecticut, and Long Island.
  In the early 18th century nearly 3,000 Palatine German refugees came to New York. Most worked first in English camps along the Hudson River to pay off their passage (paid by Queen Anne's government) before they were allowed land in the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys.  There they created numerous German-speaking Lutheran and Reformed churches, such as those at Fort Herkimer and German Flatts. Thousands more immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 18th century. They used German as the language in their churches and schools for nearly 100 years, and recruited some of their ministers from Germany. By the early 20th century, most of their churches had joined the RCA.
  During the American Revolution, a bitter internal struggle broke out in the Dutch Reformed church, with lines of division following ecclesiastical battles that had gone on for twenty years between the "coetus" and "conferentie" factions. One source indicates that defections may have occurred as early as 1737. 
  "Desolation pervaded many of the churches, whereas prior to 1737 good order was maintained in the churches, and peace and a good degree of prosperity were enjoyed. ...But in 1754, the Coetus of the previous year, having recommended the changing of the Coetus into a Classis with full powers, the opposition became violent, and the opponents were known as the Conferentie."
  A spirit of amnesty made possible the church's survival after the war. The divisiveness was also healed when the church sent members on an extensive foreign missions program in the early 19th century.
  In 1792 the classis adopted a formal constitution; and in 1794 the denomination held its first general synod. Following the American Civil War, in 1867 it formally adopted the name "Reformed Church in America". In the nineteenth century in New York and New Jersey, ethnic Dutch descendants struggled to preserve their European standards and traditions while developing a taste for revivalism and an American identity.
caption: The First Reformed Church in Albany started in 1642 to serve the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck. The current church was built in 1798.
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