Grace Cathedral Fosters Inclusivity and Healing through Yoga

Before Covid-19 shuttered the city, on any given Tuesday in downtown San Francisco, hundreds of mat-toting yogis streamed up Nob Hill in droves to converge at the historic Grace Cathedral, a midcentury Episcopalian church the size of a football field where, in 1965, nearly 5,000 people gathered—spilling out into the streets—to hear a sermon from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

- By Andrea Rice

In the past 10 years, Grace Cathedral has attracted tens of thousands of practitioners from all over the world. “We're pretty confident that before the pandemic, it was the largest continuous class anywhere in North America—and probably the Northern Hemisphere,” says Reverend Jude Harmon, who has overseen the cathedral’s growing mind-body offerings for the past eight years.

All Are Welcome

The yoga program at Grace dates back to the early aughts, but the robust and diverse community it enjoys today, according to Harmon, is mostly thanks to yoga teacher Darren Main, author of