Church of the Transfiguration, Roman Catholic

The Church of the Transfiguration is a Roman Catholic parish located at 25 Mott Street on the northwest corner of Mosco Street (formerly Park Street) in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The parish is under the authority of the Archdiocese of New York and is staffed by the Maryknoll order.History and descriptionThe church was built in 1801 in the Georgian style of architecture for the Zion English Lutheran Church., a Lutheran congregation that subsequently converted en masse to the Protestant Episcopal Church. The church then became known as Zion Protestant Episcopal Church. It was rebuilt after a major fire in 1815 which gutted the church and 35 dwellings in the surrounding Five Points neighborhood. The church was rebuilt thanks to the effort of congregation member Peter Lorillard.The Episcopal congregation sold the building in 1853 to the Roman Catholic Church of the Immigrants parish, which had been founded in 1827 by the Rev. Felix Varela y Morales to minister to the poor Irish in the Five Points who were predominantly Roman Catholic. The parish later changed its name to the Church of the Transfiguration.