“U” is for Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches

The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) is a Protestant denomination founded in Los Angeles in 1978 by the Reverend Troy Perry. A former Pentecostal pastor in Georgia and Florida, Perry was ousted from his pulpit when he announced he was gay. Affirming the historic creeds of Protestant Christianity, the UFMCC maintains a strong commitment to social action, particularly in areas of discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, age, and health. Worship styles vary among congregations and range from the charismatic to the liturgical. All churches affiliated with the UFMCC, however, celebrate the Eucharist weekly. Within five years of the denomination’s founding, churches had been established in the South. In South Carolina, there are Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville.