Join the Cathedral community, together with the New York Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians, the Anti-Racism Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and congregations from around New York for a celebration of the life and work of Blessed Absalom Jones.

Absalom Jones, born a slave in Delaware in 1746, was the first African-American ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. Having bought his own freedom in 1784, he became a lay minister serving the Black membership of St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Absalom Jones was ordained deacon in 1795 and priest in 1802 of the St. Thomas African Episcopal Church.

This service is open and welcoming to all, in commemoration of Jones’s life and perseverance against exclusion, intolerance and oppression.