The Memorial Church, Harvard Hillel, and the University Chaplains Office are Harvard’s three official religious entities. But what’s notably absent is an interfaith space to unite them.

In the mid to late 20th century — keeping pace with the rapidly diversifying faith backgrounds of their undergraduates — peer universities like Princeton, Yale, and Stanford introduced offices for religious life. However, Harvard did not.

Memorial Church, a non-denominational Protestant Church in the center of Harvard Yard, was founded in 1932. Peter J. Gomes, the minister of Memorial Church from 1974 to 2011, was “well-beloved and generous,” said Matthew Ichihashi Potts, the Church’s current minister.

Because Gomes was so well-liked, the Church acted as the “de-facto office of religious life,” Potts added. Many felt there was no need to create a separate space. Harvard’s chaplains — a group of around 40 volunteers representing various religious faiths — all worked out of the basement of the Church.

But for some, this centralized space has raised concerns.

“There’s something wrong about indicating, implying that the norm for religious life at Harvard is liberal Protestant,” Potts said.

Though the chaplains moved out of Memorial Church’s basement to an office in the Smith Center, many chaplains are still searching for a larger, more accommodating meeting place where students of all faiths can feel welcome. Such a space, these chaplains hope, can help them better support students as well as encourage interfaith conversations and programming.

‘Filtered Through the Christian Church’

Harvard does not provide funding or physical spaces for the chaplaincy to conduct religious activities. While the Office of the President provides a $10,000 budget for interfaith events, individual chaplains must look elsewhere for resources, often turning to Memorial Church.

In other words, the resources are “filtered through the Christian Church,” Potts said.

“There’s something that’s just kind of on its face, inequitable about having to ask the Christians if we can use their space,” he added.

Many chaplains are connected to outside organizations, such as St. Paul’s Church — a Catholic parish in Harvard Square — and can use nearby religious spaces as meeting places. However, for some chaplains, Cambridge real estate is difficult to come by and increasingly expensive.

Greg M. Epstein, Harvard’s Humanist chaplain, recently lost his office in Cambridge due to high rental costs.

“I think we were paying about $100,000 a year just on rent,” he said.

“Groups like ours found that it required such a total focus on fundraising to raise the kind of money that we were raising that it just wasn’t even worth it,” Epstein added.

The Cambridge Buddhist Association also recently closed its Church Street office. Lama Migmar Tseten, one of Harvard’s two Buddhist chaplains, said that he now encounters “red tape” when booking rooms, along with difficulties setting up the shrine and cushions needed for meditation.

“Whenever there is an opportunity, I’ve expressed a need for a permanent place,” Tseten said. “But there’s not much support.”

John M. Bach, Harvard’s Quaker chaplain, experienced similar difficulties with finding a location for students to worship. “I tried to book something for one of the rooms at Sanders Theater or, you know, the academic buildings, but it ain’t easy,” Bach said.

In 2022, a group of students founded Maarga, a Buddhist undergraduate group, in response to the lack of visible Buddhist resources on campus.

“There wasn’t really a place for Buddhists to interact,” Suneragiri Liyanage ’24, one of Maarga’s founders, said.

A permanent space for Buddhists, Liyanage said, would be a “hub for people to meet” and allow for private worship. He added that the space would grant Buddhist students institutional visibility and show that “Harvard values us here.”

Currently, the club books the Winthrop House meditation room, which has a ten-person limit, or uses the Hindu prayer space in the basement of Canaday Hall.

Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard. He was recently priced out of his Cambridge office amid high rental costs. By Charles K. Michael

The Canaday basement was also previously home to a Muslim prayer space, raising concerns among some Muslim and Hindu students that the space promoted invisibility and isolation. Recently, Harvard added a new Muslim prayer space in Sever Hall, in a space previously occupied by the Grossman Library of the Extension School, which closed in August 2018.

Tammy McLeod, the president of the Harvard Chaplains, said Buddhist and Muslim students are in need of more institutional support.

“It would be great for them to have their own space instead of a classroom,” she said.

Issues finding space even extend to Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center, which has its own 19,500 square-foot building on Mount Auburn St.

“We do not have an office space at Harvard Hillel for all those who are looking here and would love for there to be more spaces on campus for religious, spiritual, and ethical life,” said Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis.

In addition to a physical space, some of Harvard’s chaplains also do not have swipe access to many of the University’s facilities, including the twelve undergraduate houses.

“I still don’t have swipe access to dorms. As a result, it’s still difficult for me to attend programming where I’m supposed to speak,” Davis said.

‘A Seat at the Table’

Some chaplains also described how the relationship between the administration and the chaplaincy has changed over time, with varying levels of official recognition.

“I have felt the pushes and pulls over the years where we’ve wanted to be more Harvard,” Daryush D. Mehta, Harvard’s Zoroastrian chaplain, said. “And realizing that maybe we’re not asked to be having a seat at the table.”

According to Mehta, the chaplaincy has come “under the umbrella” of the Harvard administration. Harvard’s Muslim chaplain, Imam Khalil Abdur-Rashid, is officially on the Harvard payroll and reports directly to the Harvard’s president as the head of the Board of Religious, Ethical, and Spiritual Life. Along with Potts, he serves as an institutional religious leader.

Daryush D. Mehta, Harvard's Zoroastrian chaplain, said the chaplaincy has come "under the umbrella" of the University's central administration. By Julian J. Giordano

About a decade ago, the Chaplaincy itself came under the president’s office with a yearly stipend for the chaplain president, a position which rotates every two years. The switch also brought a $10,000 budget — a change from the previous policy of unpaid volunteers paying Harvard $200 a year to be a chaplain.

Some chaplains, however, see downsides to more institutional involvement in religious life.

According to McLeod, the creation of a center for religious life would “change the structure” of the chaplaincy’s volunteer model. “Sometimes, having volunteers who do things because they love it is amazing,” she said. “And so I wouldn’t want to lose what we have now.”

For Bach, even the current budget and paid staff of the chaplaincy can bring complications. “What we want to be is a spiritual community, but we’re forced to be a religious institution,” he said.

‘Nothing Concrete’

A longstanding concern among Harvard chaplains has been the absence of an official interfaith space for programming on campus.

“Throughout my 20 years, there have always been conversations about what, if any, kind of space the university itself would provide for things like interfaith dialogue,” said Epstein.

“What is lacking, I think, is a strong interfaith group at the college,” Abdur-Rashid said. “There’s nothing concrete, it’s a discussion,” he added.

However, to this day, there is yet to be an interfaith space on campus or any known plans to establish one.

In response to a question about whether there are any plans to establish an interfaith space to meet these demands, Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in an emailed statement, “the University appreciates the ongoing dialogue we have with Harvard’s Chaplains on how we can best advance our shared commitment to the spiritual wellbeing of our community.”

Abdur-Rashid described religious life at Harvard to be a “wonderful tapestry,” because there are various resources available for religious life such as the Hillel, Memorial Church, and the chaplaincy.

“But for it to be seen in one particular space is lacking,” Abdur-Rashid said.

Mehta pointed to the interfaith centers at nearby schools, such as Wellesley College and Tufts University, as alternative models for supporting diverse faiths. At MIT, for example, a center for religious, ethical, and spiritual life includes prayer rooms and a kitchen for people with religious dietary restrictions to use to cook their own meals.

There is currently an office for Harvard chaplains in the Smith Campus Center, but some chaplains say the space is not large enough to support programming.

“We have one tiny office that is a third of the size of this room,” McLeod said.

Though Harvard's chaplains share an office in the Smith Campus Center, some say it is not large enough to support programming. By Addison Y. Liu

McLeod proposed devoting a part of a floor in the Smith Center for the chaplaincy, which could include providing permanent prayer spaces for Harvard’s Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim affiliates.

Abdur-Rashid said that inequalities within the chaplaincy might be resolved if there were a centralized location for interfaith programming to take place.

“Certain chaplains don’t have the same level of access to booking rooms,” Abdur-Rashid said. “A center or place or interfaith center to equalize those dynamics would certainly be very beneficial.”

Reverend Sage Cole, Harvard’s Swedenborgian chaplain, is currently attempting to create an interfaith space within the Swedenborg Chapel — located across the street from William James Hall. Although the project is still in development, Cole plans to host an event to promote the interfaith space during the 2024-25 school year.

“We would have an event where we would talk about love and have speakers and musicians and artists speaking from their different religious traditions,” Cole said.

Cole said that the Harvard Chaplains’s executive committee has agreed to a partnership to co-host the event.

To establish this interfaith space, Cole estimated that she would need to raise around $8 million on top of the $2 million that has already been contributed by the Swedenborgian community.

Harvard has not contributed any funding to the project thus far. Newton declined to comment on if the University plans to contribute in the future.

“I don’t have official institution buy-in, but I think that we’re just at the beginning and wanting to see kind of where the energy is,” Cole said.

“There’s so much money in Harvard. You’d think we’d be able to find the money to do things that are important,” she added.

‘And Then We Scramble’

But in light of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, many of Harvard’s chaplains have noticed an increase in both administrative support and interest in religious life.

“The most spiritual interest I’ve ever seen has been this year,” McLeod said.

The chaplaincy held an interfaith vigil for all victims of the conflict in December, and is currently planning to contribute to an upcoming interfaith seder hosted at Harvard Hillel.

Although demand for more interfaith events has risen alongside campus tensions, the war in Israel and Gaza has simultaneously made conversations across religious lines difficult.

Reverend Carrie Ballenger, the Lutheran chaplain, said that some students voiced reservations about openly discussing the war.

“They’re afraid that they’re going to get canceled if they said the wrong thing, and that is exactly the opposite of what we need,” she said.

Harvard Hillel Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis delivers a prayer calling for peace during a December vigil organized by the Harvard Chaplains. By Michelle N. Amponsah

According to Potts, the conflict also complicated plans for the construction of an interfaith space on campus.

“We’ve had less time to think about long-term systemic change because we’re dealing with crisis and pain at the moment,” he said.

Mehta, the Zoroastrian chaplain, said that the chaplains “have to be proactive” when responding to spiritual needs on campus.

“We can’t just wait for the next conflict to come up and say, ‘All right, what do you need now?’ And then you scramble.”

“I can see why, in an era of limited resources, you attend to those needs and demands when they arise,” he said. “But some things are more constant. And I think we can do better.”