Founder and Leader:
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
Reorganizing The Church of Christ, Scientist. 1890s
Mrs. Eddy’s rented house at 62 North State Street, Concord, N.H.
In 1889 Mrs. Eddy left Boston and settled in Concord, New Hampshire, in a rented house at 62 North State Street. After two decades of strenuous labor in Lynn and Boston, she felt the time had come to step back from the incessant demands upon her time so that she could address other needs.
First, she needed to revise Science and Health.
Next, she needed to give thought to protecting her discovery through reforming and improving the organizations she had established. She began by dismantling them. First, she resigned from her position as pastor of the church in Boston. (She has subsequently been referred to as Pastor Emeritus.)
She then dissolved her own students’ organization (the Christian Scientist Association), closed the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and instructed the National Christian Scientist Association to adjourn its annual meetings for three years. Finally she dissolved the formal government of the Church of Christ (Scientist) in Boston. The church continued, with her encouragement, to hold Sunday services, retain preachers, and conduct other meetings.
These steps cleared the way for her to complete a landmark revision of Science and Health - the fiftieth edition, issued in January 1891. This was followed by a short volume, Retrospection and Introspection, an account of the meaning of her own life and work.
Christian Science Board of Directors in 1893: l. to r., Stephen A. Chase, Joseph Armstrong,
William B.Johnson, Ira O. Knapp
In 1892, Mrs. Eddy turned to reorganizing her church. She signed a Deed of Trust which created the Christian Science Board of Directors as “a perpetual body or corporation” for the purpose of building a church edifice and conducting church business.
Under her leadership, with the Board responsible for its day-to-day activities, the church was reorganized as The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. Local churches were to be branches of The Mother Church. Today there are branch churches in countries around the world.
