St. Paul’s Syracuse, the Downtown Episcopal Church, will hold a July 4 Morning Prayer service commemorating the day 250 years ago when the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, marking the birth of our nation.

The 11 a.m. service is free and open to the public at the church with the large red doors located at 220 E. Fayette St.

Penned by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence invoked universal ideas that began with the statement, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Portions of the Declaration of Independence will be read during St. Paul’s July 4 Morning Prayer service, along with readings from Frederick Douglass’s reflections on “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”.

According to the Rev. Philip Major, rector of St. Paul’s, “There are strong connections between the ideas of justice and equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and those found in the Older and Newer Testaments.”

“When it was first read out loud 250 years ago in the streets, churches and gathering places of the 13 original colonies, crowds reportedly cheered, cannons were fired and church bells rang,” continued Major. “On the Fourth of July this year, let’s ring the church bells and mark the day by offering our thanksgivings and prayers to God as we remember the soaring goals of equality expressed in our country’s founding document.”

The St. Paul’s July 4 service is being held in conjunction with the church’s bicentennial. St. Paul’s Syracuse was founded on May 22, 1826, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence. Its current building, located on the corner of Montgomery and East Fayette Streets, was completed in 1885.

A link to St. Paul’s livestream of the July 4 Morning Prayer service is available at stpaulsyr.org.

Additional information regarding the 200-year history of St. Paul’s Syracuse and the bicentennial events it has planned is available at stpaulsyr.org.