These houses of worship are older than America. How they outlasted wars, schisms and lawsuits.

On Ash Wednesday this year, about a dozen people attended a noon service at Boston’s Old North Church, founded in 1723. Two days later, a handful of worshippers took part in a Shabbat service at Newport, Rhode Island’s Touro Synagogue, dedicated in 1763. Congregations participating in sacred rituals — it is something both houses of worship have been doing longer than the United States has existed.

Such places of worship are rare. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research estimates that of the 370,000 religious congregations in the U.S. today, only about 1% existed at the country’s founding.

When the country declared independence in 1776, there were 3,228 houses of worship across the Colonies. The U.S. was already religiously diverse. Congregationalists led the pack with about 670 congregations, or just over 20% of the total. Presbyterians weren’t far behind (18%), followed by Baptists and Episcopalians (each about 15%), and Quakers at nearly 10%. Methodists had a following at 2%, Catholics were just under 2%, and there were a handful of synagogues and more than a dozen Mennonite congregations, according to sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke.

Most of them dissolved due to internal conflicts, financial strains, aging membership and/or the impact of war. Many of the places that survived, like Old North Church and Touro, did so by continuing to gather, whether in ornate or simple buildings, or when pews were full or had just a few worshippers.

Here are portraits of four that have endured.

Religion & Politics

Photos of the Week: Ebola responses, end of Hajj

A Hindu woman performs rituals at Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Yamuna, in Prayagraj, India, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

In Opinion

And finally, Kate Bowler on unexpected joy, even in the midst of pain (VIDEO)

Kate Bowler spent the past decade bashing the American cult of positivity and the pursuit of optimal happiness.

Her experience battling stage 4 colon cancer in her 30s taught her the fallacy of such thinking.

Where her earlier books pondered mortality and grief, Bowler’s latest book is, of all things, about joy. Perhaps ironically, Bowler has found that skirting death pushed her to also consider opening herself up to experiencing joy.

RNS invited Kate Bowler, who teaches American religious history at Duke Divinity School, to talk about her new book, “Joyful, Anyway.”

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