Built in 1760–61, it was designated a National Historic Landmark as one of the few buildings unambiguously attributable to Peter Harrison, the first formally trained architect to work in the British colonies.

The church's first rector was East Apthorp, and most of the founding members lived along the nearby Tory Row, now called Brattle Street.

[4][5][6] Its wooden frame rests on a granite foundation built from ballast stones from ships arriving at Boston Harbor.

In April 1967 the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Doctor Benjamin Spock were denied access to a building at Harvard University to hold a press conference denouncing the Vietnam War, but the Reverend Murray Kenney welcomed them to Christ Church; a plaque in the parish hall commemorates the event.

Another activist to speak at Christ Church was Jesse Jackson, who spoke as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in 2004.