Historical neglect is too often the fate of leaders who work humbly to cure men's ills, rather than add to them. Such a man was Felix Francisco Jose Maria de la Concepcion Varela y Morales. On December 17, 1823, Father Varela arrived in New York harbor on the packet ship 'Draper' from Gibraltar. He had just been banished from the Spanish Empire because he, the scion of a prominent Cuban family, representing his native country in the Spanish Cortes, had the temerity to argue on the side of the Constitutionalists and in favor of government by representation; against the slave trade; and in favor of independence for his native Cuba. When the Bourbon king of France, Louis XVIII, rushed his army to the support of the tottering Ferdinand VII, Father Varela and his colleagues were forced to flee Spain. On his arrival in New York, he took up residence in St. Peter's where he mastered English and became John Power's assistant.

Father Varela was more than just the founder of New York's fourth parish; he was a leading journalist and educator of his day. A constant contributor to the newspapers of the period, he established his own Catholic weekly as well as the City's first Spanish language journal. In 1837 he became the Vicar General of the Diocese and was known as the "Vicar General of the Irish." This sobriquet was an indication of the character of the man. Despite startling differences of birth, class, education and culture that separated his from the Irish immigrant poor, he found among them a ready acceptance and a genuine affection. Perhaps he saw them as fellow victims of a common oppression. However, it was more likely that his gentleness of manner and sincere concern drew them to him. Father Varela was a man who bore his principles with neither malice nor arrogance, expressing them most eloquently through humble service to this fellow man.

Father Varela had registered the property of Christ Church under the name of the Bishop of New York, Jean Du Bois. This quiet innovation was, after years of controversy over lay trustee control of parishes, to become the pattern for future parishes. His gesture was not lost on the Lay Trustees of the Cathedral who responded by attacking Du Bois in the press, labeling him a felon and thief. On the other hand, Father Varela's Trustees threw their full support behind him, and elected him Chairman of the Board. The battle eventually died down but the was between the Lay Trustees and the Bishop would continue to disrupt Church unity for many years.

Father Varela's congregation was an unusually diverse mixture of people. While the Irish immigrants were by far in the majority and their numbers continued to swell, Christ Church had significant representation from all classes and all cultures. A list of her earliest Board of Trustees reads like a mini United Nations roll call; Felix O'Neil; John Delmonico, a Swiss of the famous restaurant family; Francois Everad; John Garcia; Michael Burke; and Mariano Velazquez, the eminent lexicographer, served as financial auditor. Among the priests who came to assist Father Varela in the parish, there was equal diversity: Joseph Schneller -Austria; Dr. Charles Constantine Pise -whose Italian father had married a Philadelphia; John Freitas - Portuguese; Lewis Terhykowicz -Polish; Bernardo Antonio Llaneza -a Cuban trained at Rose Hill, now Fordham; William Mc Clellan -Irish; and Alexander Muppietti -an Italian Carthusian from Turkey.

It was Father Varela's openness of spirit that made Christ Church a place of welcome for all God's children, whether rich or poor, society's favored or rejected. Many people, many languages, many races, found equal place at the table of the Lord.

In addition to the exigencies of poor housing, unemployment and poverty rampant through the City, the natural calamity that followed must have tested the endurance of Father Varela's flock to the breaking point. In 1832, cholera struck the City and Christ Church was in the center of the epidemic. Thousands died as the disease spread. Those with means fled, many taking up residence in the Village of Greenwich to wait out the storm. Father Varela and his assistants worked without rest, caring for the sick, consoling the dying, and burying the dead. They went from hospitals, to prisons, to the shacks of the distressed poor. They were frustrated by their powerlessness to comfort the bereaved. Then, it was over. The plague had passed and people began to return to the City. Father Varela's congregation had barely ended their mourning when their church building was dealt a severe blow. On the morning of October 27, 1833, as Father Schneller was offering Mass, a loud rumbling noise was heard and a huge fissure spread across the interior wall. New construction across the street had undermined the structure. All efforts at reinforcing the walls proved unsuccessful and the building had to be abandoned. The congregation moved to rented quarters on William Street; then moved again to 45 Ann Street, where they celebrated Mass in an upper room. During the day, Father Varela used the premises to teach his students. He had just opened a school for the children of the poor. There in the upper room, the congregation discussed pans for a permanent home.

The diocese had purchased land on James Street in 1835, and by the following year a beautiful church had been erected on the site. Many of Father Varela's parishioners felt it was too far north and east. They were unwilling to go. In the meantime, John Delmonico, a trustee and admirer of Father Varela's happened to pass 45 Chambers Street as the auction o the Reformed Presbyterian Church was taking place. On impulse, Delmonico bid $55,000 and was awarded the deed. Father Varela managed to scrape the money together through heavy loans, donations, and gifts. While he was in the process of raising the needed funds, an event took place that forced the transaction despite all the financial risks involved. On the night of December 16, 1835, fire broke out in lower Manhattan. By the following evening, thirteen acres and seven hundred buildings had been destroyed. Families searched for their dead in ruins that smoldered for over a year. The Great Fire of 1835 ended any thought remaining in the old neighborhood. Christ Church and the hopes of her people literally went up in smoke.

There was a great hue and cry from the Protestant press when it was learned that the papists had captured the fine Old Dutch Reform Church. Nevertheless, the sale went through, and Father Varela's congregation moved in. Nor did the walls come troubling down as had been predicted. On March 31^st the church was solemnly blessed and received the name, The Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. Thus, the original Christ Church congregation had become, in 1836, two parishes: Transfiguration and St. James. The Church's registers and records moved with Father Varela to the Church on Chambers Street. He himself took up residence around the corner on Reade Street.

Father Varela was to spend en more years with the congregation he had founded. For some people, problems come and problems go. For Father Varela and his people, problems came and took up permanent residence. The year of their arrival on Chambers Street was marked by another dreadful epidemic of cholera. Then, in 1838, another depression gripped the city. Transfigurations financial situation was disastrous. When Father Varela was elected President of the Board, the election was both an unprecedented vote of confidence in his leadership, and an acknowledgement of the Board'' failure to rescue Transfiguration from further financial deterioration. Within the parish, evidence of the spread of poverty was everywhere.

In 1837 Father Varela became Vicar General of the diocese. A few months later, Bishop Du Bois passed away. Any consideration of Father Varela to fill the vacancy was forestalled by Spanish influence in Rome. He was still 'persona non grata' in the Empire. Bishop John Hughes succeeded Du Bois. He was called "the Fighting Bishop" by friend and foe alike for his uncompromising, belligerent, and aggressive leadership. While both Bishop Hughes and Father Varela were highly intelligent men, both sharing a common concern for their people and fighting to rectify injustices, they were of different temperaments entirely. Father Varela was more the statesman, applying reason to possibility, while bishop Hughes was born for battlefields. Their difference of approach was sharply illustrated by the Public School Controversy of 1842.

New York did not yet have a Public School System. Private schools educated the children of parents with means. Many churchmen, including Father Varela, operated 'free schools' which periodically received some financial assistance from the City. The major share of the responsibility for educating the children of the poor was in the hands of the Public School Society -a private philanthropic organization that ran institutions known as 'charity schools.' Unfortunately, the praiseworthy motives of the Society were also mixed with generous portions of Anglo-Protestant bias; and its textbooks not only included Protestant Bibles but also material of an anti-Catholic nature. The Irish slum dwellers were in no mood to sell their birthrights for such questionable bowls of porridge, especially when offered by the same class of people they had come to distrust. Bishop Hughes mobilized his forces and prepared for was. The fight for state aid to Catholic schools reached Albany in 1842. By that time, the Society, under strong pressure, sought a compromise solution. It was to Father Varela that they brought the offensive books for correction and revision. The hours they spent with him must have been a valuable education in the dangers of uninformed paternalism. Father Varela worked for compromise. In spite of Governor William Seward's support, the bill for state aid to Catholic schools was defeated in Albany. A non-sectarian educational system was established to be run directly under government supervision. Bishop Hughes' reaction was completely in character. He condemned the bill as a violation of immigrant parents' basic rights to educate their young in a manner they saw fit, and then set about establishing a parallel Catholic school system throughout the diocese. Certainly, the issues raised by the controversy are still very present. Father Varela did not attend the final meetings of the committee. His own school apparently fell victim to the decision, for a few years later an observer wrote, "there is not the ghost of a school to be seen at Transfiguration." The financial burden of a Catholic school system would have been unbearable for his poor.

Father Varela and his assistants threw themselves into work among their people. And there was plenty to do. The condition of the city was appalling. Social services for the poor were so meager as to be totally ineffective. Basic sanitation did not exists; drinking water was sold by vendors in the streets, pigs roamed everywhere, stray dogs multiplied, and anyone with a sense of smell was well aware that the hundred of cabs, carriages, coaches, omnibuses, trolleys, freight wagons, traps, delivery carts, and black marias were drawn by horses. The solution to all this was for people with means to move north, leaving the chaos to those whom had to remain.

The poverty Father Varela faced among his people was awesome. He did what he could. He started parish aid societies; became a spokesman for their grievances; in the press and by public debate, he defended their ancient faith, their right to be in America, and their loyalty to both. In his Church, he taught them to read and write, reinforced their courage, challenged them to do better, and comforted them when they failed. He gathered them together each week and in the solemnity of worship refreshed their sense of personal worth and dignity. When he saw the disease of alcoholism ravaging his flock, he formed a temperance union that numbered over a thousand men and invited Father Theobald Matthew, founder of Ireland's pioneer movement, to address the parish.

Father Varela first gave away his money and when that was gone the furnishings in his house, and finally his own clothes. He was tricked into buying a new suit by a friend who begged help for a "poor but deserving" man. His friend then presented him with the purchase.

The sheer volume of work was staggering, baptisms a marriages, not to mention care for the sick, the dying, scores of funerals, and the constant influx of more immigrants -unskilled, unwanted, and uncared for. Finally, Father Varela's health broke down under the strain. In 1846, he was sent to Florida with the hope that a kinder climate might restore his energies and brings about his recovery. It was not to be so. He died in Florida on February 25, 1853. Cuban students asked for the return of his body to Havana but the request was denied and he was buried in the old churchyard (Tolomato cemetery) of St. Augustine where he had spent part of his childhood. He left behind a rich legacy of faithful service to God and to his beloved people of Transfiguration among whom his memory would endure.