Washington National Cathedral

Washington National Cathedral
National Register of Historic Places
Washington National Cathedral in the evening sun (August 2009)
location	Washington, DC
Coordinates	38 ° 55 '49.9 "  N , 77 ° 4' 16.4"  W Coordinates: 38 ° 55 '49.9 "  N , 77 ° 4' 16.4"  W.
Built	1907-1990
architect	Frederick Bodley ,
NRHP number	74002170
The NRHP added	May 3, 1974

Washington National Cathedral (September 2008)

The sanctuary

Exterior view

damaged spiers from the 2011 earthquake

The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington , known as Washington National Cathedral , is an episcopal cathedral in Washington, DC , the capital of the United States. It is listed as a memorial on the National Register of Historic Places and is known as the United States' National House of Prayer .

The cathedral is the official seat of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA (currently: Michael Bruce Curry ) and at the same time the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (currently: John Bryson Chane). It is the mother church of the Episcopal Church for the borough of Columbia and Counties of Charles , St. Mary’s , Prince George’s, and Montgomery in the state of Maryland . The legal sponsor of Washington National Cathedral and its facilities, the National Cathedral School, St. Albans School, Beauvoir School, and Cathedral College is a foundation, the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation .

The cathedral is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue in the Northwest Quadrant of Washington. It is the sixth largest cathedral in the world and the second largest in the United States.

The Washington National Cathedral was incorporated into the federal government by a charter of the United States House of Representatives on January 6, 1893, but receives no federal, state, or city funds. The National Cathedral Association carries the largest share of the cathedral's funding. Construction began in 1907 with the laying of the foundation stone in the presence of US President Theodore Roosevelt and lasted 83 years; the last finial was added in 1990 in the presence of George HW Bush .

On August 23, 2011, the church building was slightly damaged in an earthquake . Several capping stones on the spiers broke off or came out of their anchorages. A falling fragment broke through the metal roof. Occasional cracks formed on the apses.

Managers

Although the cathedral is the seat of two bishops, it is subject to Anglican canon law according to the jurisdiction of the cathedral chapter , which is presided over by a provost.

The current Provost (Dean) of Washington National Cathedral is The Very Revd. Samuel T. Lloyd III, who took office on April 23, 2005. Prior to that, Lloyd was the pastor (rector) of Trinity Church in Boston , Massachusetts.

The earlier cathedral provosts were:

• Alfred Harding (from 1909 to 1916)
• George CF Bratenahl (from 1916 to 1936)
• Noble C. Powell (from 1937 to 1941)
• Zebarney T. Phillips (from 1941 to 1942)
• John W. Suter (from 1944 to 1950)
• Francis B. Sayre, Jr. (from 1951 to 1978)
• John T. Walker (from 1978 to 1989; also bishop)
• Nathan D. Baxter (from 1992 to 2003)

Church services

Regular church services

In the cathedral chapter is the precentor , currently the capitular Revd. Carol L. Wade, responsible for worship and church music. The services, like the cathedral itself, are rooted in the teaching and practice of the Episcopal Church and are based on the tradition of the Book of Common Prayer . Four (five in summer) services are held every weekday, including a daily mass. From Sunday to Thursday one of the choirs sings the Evensong, the Anglican form of evening prayer. The forty minute service is attended by around 50 to 75 people (more on Sundays). Five Eucharistic celebrations are celebrated on Sundays, including a modern folk mass that takes place in the chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea and a late afternoon Eucharist for the sick.

The cathedral was also temporarily home to various communities, including a Jewish synagogue community and an Orthodox community. It was also the location of several ecumenical and interfaith services. In October 2005 Reverend Nancy Wilson was blessed at Cathedral and transferred to the office of moderator (leader of the doctrine of the faith) of the Metropolitan Community Church by previous moderator Rev. Troy Perry deployed.

Every Christmas the cathedral offers special services that are broadcast around the world. The service with Bible readings and Christmas carols ( Lessons and Carols ) is broadcast and broadcast live by Public Radio International . Christmas at Washington National Cathedral is a live televised broadcast of 9 o'clock mass on Christmas Day. It is produced by Albritton Communications and can be received on nationwide television networks in most US cities. Some affiliated TV channels broadcast the service at noon. The Christmas service in the cathedral has been televised since 1953.

Major church services

Many major services were held in Washington National Cathedral, reflecting the cathedral's importance as a "national place of prayer for all people". For example, during World War II, services were held monthly “in the name of a united people in a time of need”. The pulpit in Washington National Cathedral was the last Martin Luther King spoke of before he was assassinated in 1968.

Significant religious services include the state funerals of three US presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower , who was laid out in public in the cathedral (1969), Ronald Reagan (2004) and Gerald Ford (2007).

Memorial services were held for US Presidents Warren G. Harding , William Howard Taft , Calvin Coolidge , Harry S. Truman (1973), and Richard Nixon (1994).

There were also prayer services for the inauguration of US presidents. This concerned Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1937), Ronald Reagan (1985), George HW Bush (1989), George W. Bush (2001 and 2005), Barack Obama (2009 and 2013).

Other important church services (selection):

• Funeral Service for Former First Lady Edith Wilson (1961)
• Memorial Service for Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1962)
• Memorial service for the victims of the Vietnam War on November 14, 1982
• Funeral for Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (1996)
• Funeral for Ambassador Pamela Harriman (1997)
• Funeral service for newspaper publisher Katharine Graham (2001)
• Memorial service for the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks , at which President George W. Bush gave a speech
• Evensong for the victims of the Virginia Tech rampage (2007)
• Funeral for civil rights activist Dorothy Height (2010)
• Memorial service for astronaut Neil Armstrong (2012)
• Memorial service for Nelson Mandela (2014)
• Funeral Service for President George HW Bush (2018)

Many important services were interfaith services, for example the memorial service for the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Mohammad Chātami , former Iranian President, gave a speech in the cathedral on September 7, 2006 as part of a conference on the subject of “Understanding between civilizations and cultures”.

Building history

In 1792, Pierre L'Enfants "plan for a federal city" provided land for a "large church for national purposes". The National Portrait Gallery is located in this square today . A meeting was held in 1891 to renew plans for a national cathedral. In 1893 the United States House of Representatives allowed the Columbia District Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation to build a cathedral. The impressive location on Mount Saint Alban was chosen. Henry Yates Satterlee , first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, appointed Frederick Bodley , England's leading Anglican church architect, as chief architect. Henry Vaughan was appointed supervising architect.

On September 29, 1907, on Michaelmas Day , construction began with a ceremonial speech by US President Theodore Roosevelt and the laying of the foundation stone. In 1912, the Bethlehem Chapel in the crypt of the unfinished cathedral was opened for services, which have been taking place daily since then. After construction of the cathedral resumed after a brief hiatus in World War I, Bodley and Vaughan died. After World War I, General John J. Pershing led efforts to raise funds for the Church. The American architect Philip Hubert Frohman took over the planning of the cathedral and was appointed lead architect. Funding for the national cathedral came entirely from private sources. Maintenance and care are still completely dependent on private support. Washington National Cathedral has been listed as a memorial on the National Register of Historic Places since May 3, 1974 .

The cathedral's blueprint was designed by George Bodley , an eminent British Gothic Revival architect of the day, while Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. carried it through to completion. After Bodley died in 1907, his student Henry Vaughan revised the original design, which saw the pen as too weak. After his death and the cessation of work during the First World War, the monastery hired Philip Frohman and partners to have the building completed. Frohmann was obliged to complete a completed version of the Bodley plan: it included the addition of the carillon section of the main tower, the widening of the west facade and many minor changes. No major changes have been made since Frohmann's death in 1971. Ralph Adams Cram was hired to oversee Frohmann because of his experience with the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City . But he insisted on so many major changes to the original draft that Frohmann convinced the cathedral monastery to dismiss him.

architecture

South gable

Washington National Cathedral was completed on September 29, 1990 after nearly a century of planning and 83 years of construction. Its final design shows a mixture of influences of various Gothic architectural styles of the Middle Ages, recognizable by pointed arches, candle arches , vaulted ceilings, stained glass , ornaments carved in stone and by three similar towers; two on the western front and a crossing tower . The westwork is reminiscent of Bristol Cathedral .

The Washington National Cathedral consists of a long, narrow rectangular nave which is formed of a achtjochigen nave and broad aisles, as well as a fünfjochigen chancel which intersects with a cross sechsjochigen ship. The Gloria in Excelsis Tower rises above this crossing with a height of 91 m (301 ft) . Its peak is 206 m (676 ft) above sea level and is the highest point in the Columbia District; the Pilgrim Observation Gallery at its top allows for a sweeping view of the city. Overall, the cathedral is 115 m (375 ft) above sea level. What is unique is that the tower has two complete sets of bells: a set for chimes, which consists of 53 bells, and a set for alternating bells, which consists of 10 bells. The cathedral is set in 57 acres (230,000 m²) of landscaped grounds on Mount Saint Alban.

The porch on the first floor, which protrudes from the south aisle, has a large portal with a carved tympanum . This portal can be reached through the so-called Pilgrim Steps , a 12 m (40 ft) wide staircase.

Most of the building was constructed from gray limestone quarried in Indiana . Modern materials are only used to replace beams and rafters that were made of wood: in the roof area with steel or with concrete in the supporting structures of the bells and levels in the west towers.

The pulpit was built from stones from Canterbury Cathedral . Glastonbury Abbey provided stones for the cathedra , the bishop's throne. A piece of rock from the garden tomb in Jerusalem was worked into the high altar .

There are other artistic works, such as the more than two hundred colorful church windows, the most famous of which is the Space Window , in honor of the first person to step on the moon, and in whose center a fragment of moon rock is embedded. Most of the decorative elements have Christian symbolism that is a reference to the Church's Episcopal roots, but the church is also filled with monuments to commemorate people and events of national importance: statues of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln , in the ground State seals embedded in the narthex , state flags hung along the nave and stained glass windows commemorating events such as the Lewis and Clark expedition .

The cathedral was deliberately built with many asymmetrical cracks , in keeping with an apocryphal medieval custom that aims to show that only God can be perfect. The architects designed the chapels of the crypt in the Romanesque style, thus predating the Gothic, as if the cathedral had been built as a successor to earlier churches, which is more common for European cathedrals.

There are over 200 figurative gargoyles on the outside of the cathedral . One of them shows Darth Vader . While the cathedral's west towers were being built, the builders held a competition for children to design decorative sculptures for the cathedral. The depiction of the wicked Vader, sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter and sculpted by Patrick J. Plunkett, was placed high on the north-west tower of the cathedral, where it functions as a traditional grotesque .

music

Choirs and orchestras

The men's and boys' choir of the Washington National Cathedral, founded in 1909, is currently one of the few cathedral choirs in the USA to which a school is affiliated in the English choral tradition. The 18 to 22 soprano and alto singing boys are between 8 and 14 years old and attend the St. Albans School, a school for boys attached to the cathedral, as scholarship holders.

In 1997, Bruce Neswick Cathedral's male and girl choir was founded, using the same men as the male and boy choirs. The two choirs currently share their worship duties and occasionally work together. The female choir members attend the National Cathedral School , the girls' school attached to the cathedral , as scholarship holders .

Both choirs have recently recorded various CDs, including a Christmas CD, a US premiere of Ståle Kleiberg's Requiem for the Victims of Nazi Persecution, and a patriotic CD called America the Beautiful .

The choirs rehearse separately as part of their schedule each morning of the week. The rehearsal work is graded like regular lessons. The choirs sing the Evensong daily (the boys on Mondays and Wednesdays, the girls on Tuesdays and Thursdays). When participating in the Sunday service, the choirs take turns singing in the morning in the Eucharistic celebration and in the afternoon in the evening service. The choirs also sing in many national and international events. The choirs also play a key role in the annual Christmas at Washington National Cathedral radio show , which airs nationwide on Christmas Day.

Organ console

The Washington National Cathedral's local symphony choir is the Cathedral Choral Society . Every summer the Cathedral Choral Society plays with the National Symphony Orchestra .

musical direction

Music director is currently the choir director Michael McCarthy. Erik Suter is organist and chief choir director. Scott Hanoian is assistant organist and choir director. Former organists and choir directors have included Bruce Neswick , Edgar Priest , Robert George Barrow , Paul Callaway , Richard Wayne Dirksen , Douglas Major and James Litton .

organ

The large organ was installed in 1938 by the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company . The instrument has 157 registers (189 rows of pipes, 10647 pipes ), of which 131 are sounding registers, and 26 transmissions, on four manuals and pedal . The main work (great), choir work (choir), swell work, solo work and pedal are located in two organ cases that are built into the triforium in the nave, on the left and right. Breastwork, positive and gallery pedal are located on the northern gallery in the transept and have their own console, but can be played from the main organ.

National Cathedral Association (NCA)

The National Cathedral Association is the cathedral's fundraising and public relations group. It consists of over 14,000 members nationwide and is divided into committees organized by state. More than 88 percent of its members live outside of the Washington area. Each year a state has a state day in the cathedral, with its name being mentioned in the prayers. Every four years a state has a Major State Day. On this day, its residents are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the cathedral and state officials are invited to give a speech. The flags of all American states always hang from the front aisle of the main nave.

Final resting places

The Washington National Cathedral, its mausoleum and the Columbarium are the final resting places of many notable American citizens:

• George Dewey († 1917), sole holder of the highest rank Admiral of the Navy
• Philip Frohman († 1972), architect of the cathedral
• Helen Keller († 1968), deaf-blind writer
• Anne Sullivan Macy († 1936), teacher and friend of Helen Keller. The first woman to be buried in the cathedral.
• Henry Yates Satterlee († 1908), first episcopal bishop of Washington
• Matthew Shepard († 1998), student and murder victim
• Leo Sowerby († 1968), founding director of the "College of Church Musicians"
• Henry Vaughan († 1917), architect of the cathedral
• Woodrow Wilson († 1924), the 28th US President - Wilson is the only President buried in Washington
• Edith Wilson († 1961), second wife of Woodrow Wilson and second first lady

The cathedral in popular culture

• The setting of Margaret Truman's Murder at the National Cathedral .
• As the filming location of Mrs. Landingham's funeral and President Bartlet's subsequent tirade against God in the second season finale of The West Wing .
• The area around the cathedral: The area in and around the cathedral is mentioned often, but mostly vaguely, in the film In the Spider's Web .
• The cathedral is a setting in Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol .
• One of the gargoyles is based on the figure of Darth Vader from Star Wars .

literature

• 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 contains the Dean's Office of Very Reverend Noble C. Powell , who was also the overseer 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).

Web links

Commons : Washington National Cathedral  - Collection of Images

• Episcopal Diocese of Washington
• Washington National Cathedral website
• Washington National Cathedral as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse

Individual evidence

1. ↑ What Really Happened to the National Cathedral in the Quake theatlantic.com (English), with photos of the damage
2. ↑ Washington National Cathedral: Prominent Services cathedral.org (English)
3. ↑ cathedral / programs / reagan on www.cathedral.org ( Memento of May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Washington National Cathedral: Presidential Funerals cathedral.org (English)
5. ↑ Truman had planned a state funeral and his final resting place in the cathedral. However, due to the advanced age of his wife, Bess Truman, after his death, all services were held in Missouri and were not open to the public. Foreign dignitaries gathered for a memorial service in the cathedral a week after the funeral.
6. ↑ Address by George W. Bush at the memorial service on September 14, 2001 americanrhetoric.com, video and text (English)
7. ^ The National Cathedral in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 4, 2017.
8. ↑ cathedral.org
9. ↑ Darth Vader - The Star Wars Villain on the Northwest Tower http://www.cathedral.org/about/darthVader.shtml , accessed February 27, 2016
10. ↑ What does Darth Vader have to do with the Cathedral ?, PDF
11. ↑ More information about the organ ( Memento from November 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )