San Miguel Chapel
Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
An adobe chapel in Santa Fe, originally built around 1610 and often called the oldest church building in the continental United States, still holding Sunday Mass after four centuries.
San Miguel Chapel stands at the edge of newly founded Santa Fe, on what was likely the site of a Tewa village, and the original church was probably raised around 1610. It was destroyed or damaged in the lead-up to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and rebuilt in 1710 after the Spanish return, possibly reusing earlier material; the carved wooden reredos with its statue of St. Michael was added in 1798. Its San Jose Bell, cast in 1356 in Spain according to the chapel's histories, rings from the tower.
Since 1859 the chapel has been owned by Saint Michael's High School and the Christian Brothers Educational Foundation, consecrated by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe but without a parish of its own; it still holds a monthly Mass. Twenty-first-century care continues, from conservation fundraising to a solar installation, evidence that this small adobe building is a living, maintained place of worship rather than a ruin. Its caretakers state the mission plainly: to preserve sacred ground and the layered story of Santa Fe's Spanish, Indigenous and frontier past.
Visiting
San Miguel Chapel (401 Old Santa Fe Trail) is open Monday to Saturday 10am to 3pm, Sunday 12 to 3pm; entrance $7 general, $5 seniors and veterans, children under 12 free; Mass on the first Sunday of the month at 3pm.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Miguel_Mission,_Santa_Fe_NM.jpg), CC BY-SA 4.0, John Phelan.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories