Washington National Cathedral
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The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, known as the Washington National Cathedral, is an Episcopal cathedral in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It is a listed monument on the National Register of Historic Places and the designated "National House of Prayer" of the United States.
The cathedral is the official seat of both the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (Episcopal Church USA) and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. It is the mother church of the Episcopal Church in the District of Columbia and in the Maryland counties of Charles, Montgomery, Prince George's, and St. Mary's. The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation officially oversees the Washington National Cathedral and its sister institutions: Beauvoir School, Cathedral College, National Cathedral School, and St. Albans School. Episcopal Church USA is officially in communion with the Church of England.
The cathedral is at the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues in the Northwest quadrant of Washington. It is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world and second-largest in the United States.
The Washington National Cathedral is affiliated with the government by a charter of Congress, signed on January 6, 1893, but does not receive any federal, state, or city funding. The National Cathedral Association provides most funding for the cathedral. Construction began in 1907, when the foundation stone was laid in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt, and lasted for 83 years; the last finial was placed in the presence of President George H. W. Bush in 1990.
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[edit] Leadership
The cathedral is both the episcopal see of the bishop of Washington (currently the Right Reverend John Bryson Chane) and the primatial see of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (currently the Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori).
The current dean of the Washington National Cathedral is the Very Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III, who took office on April 23, 2005. Before becoming dean, Lloyd was the rector of Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
Former deans:
- Alfred Harding (1909–1916)
- George C. F. Bratenahl (1916–1936)
- Noble C. Powell (1937–1941)
- Zebarney T. Phillips (1941–1942)
- John W. Suter (1944–1950)
- Francis B. Sayre, Jr. (1951–1978)
- John T. Walker (1978–1989; simultaneously bishop)
- Nathan D. Baxter (1992–2003)
[edit] Establishment
In 1792, Pierre L'Enfant's "Plan of the Federal City" set aside land for a "great church for national purposes." The National Portrait Gallery now occupies that site. In 1891, a meeting was held to renew plans for a national cathedral. In 1893, the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia was granted a charter from Congress to establish the cathedral. The commanding site on Mount Saint Alban was chosen. Henry Yates Satterlee, first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington chose Frederick Bodley, England's leading Anglican church architect, as the head architect. Henry Vaughan was selected supervising architect.
Construction started September 29, 1907 with a ceremonial address by President Theodore Roosevelt and the laying of the cornerstone. In 1912, Bethlehem Chapel opened for services in the unfinished cathedral, which have continued daily ever since. When construction of the cathedral resumed after a brief hiatus for World War I, both Bodley and Vaughan had died. Gen. John J. Pershing led fundraising efforts for the church after World War I. American architect Philip Hubert Frohman took over the design of the cathedral and was henceforth designated the principal architect. Funding for the National Cathedral has come entirely from private sources. Maintenance and upkeep continue to rely entirely upon private support.
[edit] Music
The Great Organ was installed by the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company in 1938.
The Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, founded in 1909, is one of very few cathedral choirs of men and boys in the United States with an affiliated school, in the English choir tradition. The 18–22 boys singing treble are of ages 8–14 and attend St. Albans School, the Cathedral school for boys, on singing scholarships.
In 1997, the Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls was formed by Bruce Neswick, using the same men as the choir of the men and boys. The two choirs currently share service duties and occasionally collaborate. The girl choristers attend the National Cathedral School on singing scholarships.
Both choirs have recently recorded several CDs, including a Christmas album; a U.S. premiere recording of Ståle Kleiberg's Requiem for the Victims of Nazi Persecution; and a patriotic album, America the Beautiful.
The choirs rehearse separately every weekday morning in a graded class incorporated into their school schedule. The choristers sing Evensong every day (the Boys Choir on Mondays and Wednesdays and the Girls Choir on Tuesdays and Thursdays). The choirs alternate Sunday worship duties, singing both morning Eucharist and afternoon evensong when they are on call. The choirs also sing for numerous state and national events. The choirs are also featured annually on Christmas at Washington National Cathedral, broadcast nationally on Christmas Day.
Michael McCarthy serves as Director of Music. Erik Suter is Organist and Associate Choirmaster. Scott Hanoian is Assistant Organist and Choirmaster. Former organists and choirmasters include Bruce Neswick, Edgar Priest, Robert George Barrow, Paul Callaway, Richard Wayne Dirksen, Douglas Major, and James Litton.
The resident symphonic chorus of the Washington National Cathedral is the Cathedral Choral Society.
[edit] Worship
The worship department, led by the Rev. Canon Carol L. Wade, is, like the cathedral itself, rooted in the doctrine and practice of the Episcopal Church, and based in the Book of Common Prayer. Four (five in the summer) services are held each weekday, including the daily Mass. Sunday through Thursday, the Cathedral Choirs sing Evensong. The forty-minute service is attended by roughly fifty to seventy-five people (more on Sunday). Five services of the Eucharist are also held on Sunday, including the Contemporary Folk Mass, held in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and a Healing Eucharist, in the late evening.
The cathedral also has been a temporary home to several congregations, including a Jewish pro-synagogue and an Eastern Orthodox community. It has also been the site for several ecumenical and/or interfaith services. In October 2005, at the cathedral, the Rev. Nancy Wilson was consecrated and installed as Moderator (Denominational Executive) of the Metropolitan Community Church, by its founding Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Troy Perry.
Each Christmas, the cathedral holds special services, which are broadcast to the world. The service of lessons and carols is distributed live by Public Radio International. Christmas at Washington National Cathedral is a live television broadcast of the 9 A.M. Mass on Christmas Day. It is produced by Albritton Communications and is shown on national affiliates in most cities around the United States. Some affiliates broadcast the service at noon. The Christmas service at the cathedral has been broadcast to the nation on television since 1953.
[edit] National Cathedral Association
The National Cathedral Association (NCA) seeks to provide funds for and promote the Washington National Cathedral. Across the United States, it has more than 14,000 members, more than 88 percent of whom live outside the Washington area, and who are divided into committees by state. Every year, a state has a state day at the cathedral, on which that state is recognized by name in the prayers. Every four years, a state has a Major State Day, at which time those who live in the state are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the cathedral and dignitaries from the state are invited to speak. American state flags are always displayed in the nave.
[edit] Architecture
Washington National Cathedral was completed on 29 September 1990 after almost a century of planning and 83 years in construction. Its final design shows a mix of influences from the various Gothic architectural styles of the Middle Ages, identifiable in its pointed arches, flying buttresses, ceiling vaulting, stained-glass windows, carved decorations in stone, and by its three similar towers, two on the west front and one surmounting the crossing.
Washington National Cathedral consists of a long, narrow rectangular mass formed by an eight bay nave with wide side aisles and a five-bay chancel, intersected by a six bay transept. Above the crossing, rising 91 m (301 ft) above the ground, is the Gloria in Excelsis Tower. Its top, at 206 m (676 ft) above sea level is the highest point in the District of Columbia; the Pilgrim Observation Gallery - which occupies a space about 3/4ths of the way up in the west-end towers - provides sweeping views of the city. In total, the cathedral is 115 m (375 ft) above sea level. Uniquely, the central tower has two full sets of bells — a 53-bell carillon and a 10-bell peal for change ringing. The cathedral sits on a landscaped 57 acre (230,000 m²) plot on Mount Saint Alban.
The one story porch projecting from the south transept has a large portal with a carved tympanum. This portal is approached by the Pilgrim Steps, a long flight of steps 12 m (40 ft) wide.
Most of the building is constructed using gray Indiana limestone. Modern materials only replace beams and rafters that would have been built of wood with steel in the roof, or the concrete in the support structures for bells and floors in the west towers.
The pulpit was carved out of stones from Canterbury Cathedral; Glastonbury Abbey provided stone for the bishop's cathedra, his formal seat. The high altar is made from the ledge of rock in which Christ's sepulchre was hewn.
There are other works of art including over two hundred stained glass windows, the most familiar of which may be the Space Window, honoring man's landing on the Moon, which includes a fragment of lunar rock at its center. Most of the decorative elements have Christian symbolism, in reference to the church's Episcopalian roots, but the cathedral is filled with memorials to persons or events of national significance: statues of Washington and Lincoln, state seals embedded in the mosaic floor of the narthex, state flags that hang along the nave, stained glass commemorating events like the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The cathederal was built with many intentional "flaws" in keeping with an apocryphal medieval custom that sought to illustrate that only God can be perfect. Artistically speaking, these flaws (which often come in the form of intentional asymmetries) draw the observer's focus to the sacred geometry as well as compensating for visual distortions, a practice that has been used since the Pyramids and the Parthenon. Architecturally, it is thought that if the main aisle of the cathedral where it meets the cross section were not tilted slightly off its axis, a person who looked straight down the aisle would have a slight feeling of disorientation, like looking down railroad tracks [citation needed]. The architects designed the crypt chapels in Romanesque styles predating the Gothic, as though the cathedral had been built as a successor to earlier churches, a common occurrence in European cathedrals.
The Cathedral boasts what is probably the world's only sculpture of Darth Vader on a religious building. During construction of the west towers of the Cathedral, developers decided to hold a competition for children to design decorative sculptures for the Cathedral. The image of the villainous Vader, sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter and carved by Patrick J. Plunkett, was placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral, fulfilling the role of a traditional grotesque.
[edit] Architects
The master plan of the cathedral was designed by George Bodley, the preeminent British Gothic architect of the time, while Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. integrated it into the close. After Bodley died in 1907, his apprentice, Henry Vaughan, executed revisions to the original design, which the chapter saw as weak. After his death and the cessation of work during World War I, the chapter hired Philip Frohman and partners to execute the building. Frohman was committed to completing a perfected version of the Bodley plan, which included addition of the carillon section of the central tower and the enlargement of the west façade, along with countless smaller changes. Since Frohman's death in 1971, no major changes have been made. Ralph Adams Cram was hired, because of his experience with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, to supervise Frohman, but insisted on so many major changes to the original design that Frohman convinced the Cathedral Chapter to fire him.
[edit] National house of prayer
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Washington National Cathedral's role as the national house of prayer has over the years united Americans in several religious and secular services hosted at the site. During World War II, monthly services “on behalf of a united people in a time of emergency” were held.
[edit] Major events
Washington National Cathedral has played host to many major events, showing the cathedral's proud distinction as being "the national house of prayer for all people." Some of the major events that showed the cathedral's proud distinction include:
- State funerals of two American presidents:
- Dwight Eisenhower (1969)
- Eisenhower lay in repose at the cathedral before lying in state
- Ronald Reagan (2004) [1]
- Dwight Eisenhower (1969)
- Funeral for Katharine Graham (2001)
- Presidential prayer service the day after a presidential inauguration
- Memorial services. Most notable ones:
- President Harry Truman (1973)
- Truman had planned a state funeral and burial at the cathedral. However, due the advanced age of his wife, Bess when he died, all the services were done in Missouri and were private. Foreign dignitaries gathered for a memorial service at the cathedral a week after the funeral.
- Victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in 2001 during which George W. Bush declared: "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." He also claimed: "This nation is peaceful" and "our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world." [2] While the rest of the world heard Bush, Canada saw the simultaneous service on Parliament Hill, the largest single vigil there, in the nation's capital.
- President Harry Truman (1973)
In addition, Washington National Cathedral's pulpit was the last one from which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke prior to his assassination in 1968.
Many major events have been interfaith services, showing the cathedral's proud distinction. Services held at the cathedral that fall in this category are the 9/11 memorial service and the Reagan funeral.
[edit] References in popular culture
- As the setting of Margaret Truman's Murder at the National Cathedral.
- As the location of Mrs. Landingham's funeral and President Bartlet's resulting tirade against God in the second season finale of The West Wing, Two Cathedrals.
- The cathedral close, the area in and around the cathedral, is alluded to often, but rather vaguely, in the movie Along Came a Spider.
[edit] Last resting place
Washington National Cathedral and its mausoleum and columbaria are the last resting places of many notable American citizens:
- George Dewey, United States Navy admiral
- Philip Frohman, cathedral architect
- Helen Keller, blind and deaf role model
- Anne Sullivan, tutor and friend of Helen Keller. First woman to be interred at Cathedral.
- Henry Yates Satterlee, first Episcopal bishop of Washington
- Leo Sowerby, founding director of the College of Church Musicians
- Henry Vaughan, cathedral architect
- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States
- Wilson is the only president buried in Washington, D.C.
- Edith Wilson, 2nd wife and 2nd First Lady of Woodrow Wilson
[edit] Images of architectural details
 West Front: south (St. Paul) entrance |
 West Front: central tympanum (Creation of Mankind) by Frederick Hart |
 Donation Thanks Engraving |
 Vaulting in narthex |
 Corridor |
 Lincoln statue (by Walker Hancock |
 Washington statue |
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 Stained-glass window |
 Nave looking east |
 GITMO stone |
 Mount Sinai stone |
 Women's porch |
 South transcept tympanum |
 Detail of figures flanking south doors |
[edit] Bibliography
- Marjorie Hunt, The Stone Carvers: Master Craftsmen of Washington National Cathedral (Smithsonian, 1999).
- Step by Step and Stone by Stone: The History of the Washington National Cathedral (WNC, 1990).
- A Guide to the Washington Cathedral (National Cathedral Association, 1945).
- David Hein, "For God and Country: Two Historic Churches in the Nation's Capital", Anglican and Episcopal History 56 (March 1987): 123-26.
- David Hein, Noble Powell and the Episcopal Establishment in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). Chapter three covers the deanship of the Very Revd Noble C. Powell, who was also Warden of the College of Preachers.
- Peter W. Williams, Houses of God: Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United States (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).
- Cathedral Age (magazine).
Most of these items should be available in the Cathedral's Museum Shop: see https://commerce.cathedral.org/exec/ms/index.html.
[edit] External links
- Episcopal Diocese of Washington
- Washington National Cathedral website
- National Cathedral View
- Jay Hall Carpenter, gargoyle sculptor, 20 years at the cathedral [3]
- Darth Vader's grotesque
- About Darth Vader, http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/discover/darth.shtml, Visited 12/24/05;
- What does Darth Vader have to do with the Cathedral?, http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/pdfs/darth.pdf
