The Anchor, Winter 2016 by graceandholytrinitychurch

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Anchor An inclusive, spirited, and Christ-centered urban church community that transforms lives

Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

Dear Friends, In the seventh and eighth centuries of the Common Era, a controversy arose, primarily in the Greek Church, over the veneration of icons. Icons are stylized pictures of the great people of the faith, including Jesus, but also including many biblical and non-biblical figures. One side of this “iconoclastic controversy” saw the veneration of images as idolatry. Therefore it breaks the commandments of God and should not be done. The other side argued that the images were windows to heaven, but not idolatrous. The image was honored but only God was worshipped. Some said that if God could not be worshipped through physical objects, then the Incarnation itself could not have happened. It is clear that Christian people have strong feelings about their physical environment, especially the holy places where they gather to worship. A professor of mine at Seminary facetiously said, “You can preach heresy all you want and the people won’t care, but heaven help you if you move the furniture!” That is a humorous take on the attachment and care we bring to church buildings. And of course, reflecting the issues in the “iconoclastic controversy,” there are some Protestant churches who stripped out all images, painted the walls white, and used only clear glass in the windows. And then there are others, like us, who enjoy a rich variety of visual images. While it is true that we can become overly attached to the appointments and decorations in the church and forget their true purpose, at the same time, the decorative arts can provide great ways to connect with God.

We are fortunate that, at Grace and Holy Trinity Church, we worship in the context of a rich and meaningful visual environment. In worship, you may be moved by what you encounter in Holy Scripture or offer in words of prayer. You may be moved by a hymn you sing or by an anthem offered by the choir. And you may also be moved and brought into a closer relationship with God by meditating on the images all around you. Grace and Holy Trinity’s worship space provides a way for all our senses to be engaged, with the goal of empowering us to give all that we are to God. I hope you enjoy this issue of the Anchor. The Rev. Bollin M. Millner, Jr.

ike so much of the visual splendor that surrounds us in this Church, the stained glass windows are a humbling testament to the generosity of the parishioners who commissioned them as gifts in memory of people they loved. Until this story got started, I had no idea how much I took the fine windows in GHTC’s walls for granted. One of them has always been my favorite, and I’ll tell you later which one, but this project made me really look at all of them. It is remarkable that there are so many, how much variety there is among them, and what treasures they all are. Now I can’t stop looking at them, and I hope that after you read this, you won’t be able to either. We know that man-made colored glass has existed for at least 3500 years. The first evidence appears in Egyptian beads, and over the millennia, the technology and uses of glass developed steadily in every significant culture with access to fire, minerals, ash, and sand. What we recognize as the stained glass in windows was not common until the twelfth century. By the fourteenth, the finest glassmakers in the world were the Venetian artisans on the island of Murano. The tradition of stained glass windows in Romanesque and Gothic churches began as visual representations of Biblical stories, bringing interpretations of the word of God to an illiterate population. Their beauty inspired an emotional and spiritual response that recitations of Latin texts were powerless to give. Their humanity engraved the stories into the memory of even the simplest of the faithful. Many American Protestant churches, committed to utter simplicity, or believing that any images in church are idolatrous, have only plain windows. If stained glass is used, it is often kept to simple geometric patterns. Stained glass windows of the quality of those produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are exceptionally rare, and wildly expensive. Smaller, younger parishes are likely to be priced out of that market, even if they would like to have them. It is also true that styles change, and modern church buildings respond to a different aesthetic. So we worship in a building designed and decorated in that nineteenth and early twentieth

century era, when church architecture and decoration was influenced by the ecclesiological movement which arose in England in 1840, and sought to return the Episcopal church to its medieval splendor and Gothic design. The design pendulum seems to have swung repeatedly toward and then away from elaborate embellishment pretty much forever. And we are exceptionally fortunate to have benefited from the generosity of prosperous parishioners who were also supporters of these arts. I have neither the space nor the scholarship to talk about all of the windows in the Church. All of us have gazed at the wonderful Ascension window behind the altar, with its trumpeting angels and companion transoms decorated with Christian symbols. The lovely panels in the walls of the sanctuary are all familiar. There is a very good story on the Church website about the Dorcas window, fourth from the back on the south wall, and the Angel Gabriel window, fourth from the front on the north wall, from the Tiffany studios. (See the acknowledgments below if you would like access to detailed information about every window in the building) What struck me about the windows is how much variety there is among them, and how many I have never paid any attention to. So under the assumption that you are guilty of the same neglect and wish to atone, let’s talk about those. If you go halfway up the center aisle, turn around, and look up above the trompette-en-chamade, you will see three very simple geometric

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

panels. They are the only stained glass left in the nave from 1894 when the church was completed. They are arched like most of the others, but much plainer—even calmer—than everything else. Next, go back into the foyer and look across from the chapel door to see a sort of high-energy, crazy quilt window made of dalle de verre, or faceted glass, its pieces held together not with lead but with epoxy, which is poured, and then hardens around them. Now move into the chapel. I was married in this chapel thirty years ago this month. Typically, the bride remembers nothing at all about details like windows, so I have an excuse. This time I really saw how lovely they are, and how perfectly in scale with the proportions of the room. The three-panel cross and lilies over the altar feels light and refreshing, and conducive to quiet meditation. When you look at the three on the east wall, you will see a good example of differing styles in design, subject, and color scheme. Then there are the two lancets, skinny panels I had never noticed, in a freer, more angular style.

Back into the sanctuary, and see if, like me, you have been so busy chatting away on your way out of Church that you never looked up over the door into the stair hall. Yup, there’s another love-

ly thing, a picture of Jesus and Nicodemus, deep in conversation on a rooftop with a candle at their feet in the middle of the night. (John 3: 1-21, if, like me, you have to look up the story.) Now just a few observations about the windows beside us in our pews every Sunday and how various they are. Start along the left aisle, and look at the second window, the Medallion window with its strict, orderly three-element design of the Lamb of God, angels, and the cross and crown. The cherub is copied from one in Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, commissioned in 1512. Google the painting, and you will recognize the two little guys at her feet—they have shown up on greeting cards and all sorts of other places in recent years. The Dorcas window, possibly the oldest European window in town and the only one of ours signed by the maker, is next. The figures have the hallmarks of Renaissance painting, with strong triangular composition and richly draped clothing. Then there is the Gothic frame and ornamentation of the arch, which you will see in many of the other windows as well. It is strict, but has a natural if precisely ordered setting. More about this one can be found on the website. Next we have the River of Life window, not by Tiffany, but following his concept of the land-

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

scape window. Notice how the frame is still there, but has lost its rigid Gothic style. The content is organic in subject and composition, symbolic of God revealed in nature. Windows like this one solved Protestant prohibitions against using images of saints for fear of slipping into idolatry. Move along to the Three Women at the Tomb, and the frame is gone. Except for the dedication at the bottom, the image is all there is. You can see movement in the arm and wings of the angel, and feel the natural center of gravity in the womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bodies as they shrink from his radiant presence. Who knew we had a gallery of the history of 19th and 20th century stained glass art right in front of us every Sunday? If you already did, we are all impressed with your awareness. If not, go and spend some time with these extraordinary treasures, and think about which ones move you most. Now, a personal note about my favorite. Across the sanctuary from the four you just looked at, third from the front, is the Charity

window, in the painterly style. It is a simple picture of a woman sheltering three children in a rather stormy landscape, copied from a panel of a much larger window in the New College chapel at Oxford. I love it because it puts me in mind of my grandmother, the young wife of an older seminary professor. Her husband died in the 1920s and left her with no resources, three children, and one on the way. She rolled up her sleeves, hid what turned out to be a ferocious work ethic and a kind of management genius under a refined and charitable nature, and got them all raised, educated, and formed into gentle, loving people like her. Great art is a shortcut into depth of feeling, opening a channel between human souls and the divine. So whether you think these windows are distracting indulgences or holy objects or something in between, there is no denying their power as art to enrich our spiritual life, if only we will let them. Ann Norvell Gray

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am indebted to the work of Donald Traser, a meticulous researcher, who has written the definitive work on the art and architecture of the Church. Carolyn Chilton lent me the manuscript as a source document, and if you are interested in learning more about each window, please ask her about it. I am also grateful to Calder Loth, who several years ago gave me his wonderful book about the memorial windows of St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at 9th and Franklin downtown. His scholarship and the grace of his prose are matchless, and it has taken considerable ethical energy to resist stealing blatantly from that volume. Finally, my thanks to Bo for the beautiful photographs.

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

SEWING TOGETHER SEWING TOGETHER: NEEDLEWORK AT GHTC

n the living rooms of my 1950s childhood, before TV really took hold, I often heard the sound of knitting needles. Both my grandmother and mother were fierce knitters—we lived in New England, and the family regularly misplaced mittens and scarves. Because they both would knit and read at the same time, the results were often oddly shaped and a bit embarrassing when compared to what my friends wore. Still, I wanted to learn to knit. When my mother finally deemed me ready for a sweater, she let me pick out an expensive yarn if I promised to finish it. Well. You know what happened. That unfinished sweater malingered in my attic until I finally overcame my remorse and gave it away. However, I think I still have the unfinished needlework and embroidery projects I started 35 years ago after being sent to bed to prevent premature labor. (Our son was born on time, but the projects were not.) And this is why I have so much admiration for the many GHTC needleworkers who have covered, and then re-covered, the furniture so essential to our worship. Their latest accomplishment is the new kneeler covers for the chapel, replacements for the ones made in the late 1970s as part of an even more ambitious project that included altar kneelers and chairs. Taken together, all of these covers are replete with Christian symbolism.

The center chapel kneeler focuses on the Eucharist (the grapes and chalice represent the wine; the circles on the peacock’s tail refer to the bread); the Resurrection (ancient Greeks believed that a peacock’s flesh did not decay after death); and Christ himself (referred to in the center by Greek letters: chi and rho, the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek, flanked by alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, which signify that Jesus is the “First and Last”).

The kneelers at the main altar of the Church represent the Seven Christian Virtues as women holding related objects (Hope is an anchor; Temperance, two vases; Prudence, a mirror and a serpent; Charity, the heart; Faith, a chalice and cross; Fortitude, a pillar; and Justice, scales and a sword). Also included are Saint Paul, who holds the sword with which he was beheaded and a scroll of his epistles; and Saint Augustine

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

in a bishop’s habit, with book and pen. The background of these vivid depictions consists of alternating hexagons and quatrefoils containing doves and fleurs-de-lis—the symbols of grace and the Holy Trinity. Behind the altar rail are chairs with needlepointed covers that include the Bishop’s seat (IHS), a Priest’s Seat (alpha and omega), and two seats with quatrefoils, also containing the fleurde-lis (for the acolyte) and the dove (for the crucifer). As I learned from the participants in these projects—in person, on the phone, and through email—the process was as rich in symbolism as the works themselves. Overall, it was an example of intense but delicate collaboration. Some people were mentors and teachers. Others came to the projects without any experience, and became experts themselves. Emma Oppenheimer, a novice when she started, thought she was falling behind on her section, and then discovered she was ahead of everyone. There was seldom time for anyone to complete a whole piece, so a canvas had to be passed from one person to another. Some people liked to work on the background, others preferred the pattern, but because each person’s stiches had a unique tension, or tightness, the points of hand-off had to be orchestrated. A further challenge was that to ensure comfort and durability, the canvases had to be stitched on the back as well as the front, which meant that half of the hard work could never be visible.

Albert Mollegen, author of a book titled The Faith of Christians that Bo is discussing with an early-morning theology class, wrote that “we all have our symbolic way . . . of portraying the human situation.” He was exploring truths to be found in “myths” from the stories about Jesus’ birth on up to Freudian constructs, but the kneeler stories reminded me that we can find symbols to live by in many places. This project embodied the benefits of cooperation—many hands make light work—but what fascinated me most was the way different roles and strengths were needed and valued. Being in the background or even out of sight was just as important as being in the center and visible. Working together also meant providing advice (“Don’t be afraid to take out stiches and start over”) and encouragement (“Together we have agonized over things, only to cheer up as each problem was successfully resolved”) as well as “stern language” to ensure that deadlines were met. These comments testify to how difficult this work was—demanding an attention to detail that seems increasingly rare in our hurry-up times. I also saw that collaboration doesn’t have to be social. Although GHTC projects were often created in groups gathered in living rooms or on porches, engaged in conversation, some people worked solo, listening to music or audio books or their own thoughts. Gray Massie Broaddus, father of Bill and creator of our beautiful wedding kneeler with its pale blue background, doves, fleursdi-lis, and metallic thread, did needlework during his commute and also while playing bridge. The ultimate in solitude was experienced by Anne Percival’s grandfather, a Navy man, who smuggled needlework on board ship and locked himself in his cabin to contribute several covers for the family’s dining room chairs. He didn’t make anything for Grace & Holy, but his relatives did. Not only Anne but also her mother, Merrill Robling, worked on the recent chapel kneelers. Another thing that impresses me about all the Grace & Holy needleworkers is their willingness to work so hard on something and then give it away. But I believe they all have shared similar motives. Bill Broaddus thinks his father “simply

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

enjoyed the opportunity to create something beautiful . . . his joy [was] making others happy through his art.” And a member of the earlier group, Margaret Munsch, wrote to her fellow members after moving away: “I think that in addition to our love for needlework, we have had Christ’s spirit binding us together. . . . I feel a closeness to each of you that has its roots in His Love.” The needleworkers of GHTC have created objects of great beauty, craft, and utility, with images that feed and inspire our faith. But the process of creating them also provides symbols to guide us, which we need more than ever in these challenging times. Rosalie West

Photographs by Bo Millner Special thanks to Bill Broaddus, Carolyn Chilton, Barbara Davenport, Jim Featherstone, Mary Sabra Monroe, Emma Oppenheimer, Anne Percival, and Nancy Thomas, who shared memories and/or pointed me to sources of information. And all of us parishioners owe a debt of gratitude to GHTC needleworkers past and present.

McLeod, Mary Sabra Monroe (needlepoint workshop leader and teacher), Raymond Munsch (or Margaret?), Rebecca Perrine, Elinor Phillips, Judy Schmidlapp, Cornelia Shumadine, Dana Smith, Rebecca Studebaker, Anne Tiller, Virginia Totten, Nancy Thomas (committee chair), Martha Wheeler, Cynthia Williams, and Harriet Williamson

1976–1978 Sylvia Arrighi, Peggy Brown, Thelma Burnham, Mary Crumpler, Molly Davis, Garland Garrett, Mary Gillespie (mother of Mary Sabra Monroe), Alice Howle, Laura Jones, Heddi LaVerge, Nancy Leary, Barbara

2011–2016 Barbara Davenport (committee chair), Kay Gray, Dawn McNamara, Mary Sabra Monroe, Caroline Morton, Emma Oppenheimer, Hannah Owen, Anne Percival, and Merrill Robling

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

THE PULPIT AND THE LECTERN

he English word” pulpit” comes from the Latin word “pulpitum” meaning a platform or staging, especially one for use by actors. A glimpse of any one of the TV celebrity clerics’ more antic shows demonstrates that theatrics still flourish in the pulpit as they probably always have. The preacher may not write like Shakespeare, but he knows that if he can perform like Robert Preston, you’re likely to remember his preaching. All Christian churches that have clergy have pulpits. By church law or tradition, the pulpit is reserved for the clergy, and the lecterns are for lay readers. In Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches, the pulpit is on the right as you face the altar. So that side of the church is called the “gospel side,” and the other, the “epistle side.” Other Protestant denominations put the pulpit in the center of the chancel. Beyond this, the guiding principle for location of the pulpit has been audibility of the preaching to the congregation. Before the age of sound amplification, some pulpits were located in the nave to help assure it. The Bruton Parish Church pulpit is an example of those.

The Grace and Holy Trinity pulpit is on the gospel side of the chancel and about as close as it can be to the congregation. It is an octagonal prism, accessed by three steps up from the chancel floor in place of the three back facets. The chancel itself is three steps up from the nave floor, so the pulpit is higher than any other speaking area in the Church except the altar, and above all the listening areas but the balcony. The top perimeter of the pulpit is a wooden rail with a brass bookstand in the center. The rail has some interesting scars. There are several screw holes in various places where microphones were attached before sound amplification went 8

wireless. It also has a faint ring stain of mysterious origin. Did some bygone occupant of the pulpit need a cup of coffee to get through an extraordinarily tedious sermon, or a glass of water to get through an exceptionally dry one? The pulpit is elegantly decorated. Each of the two prism faces on either side of the center face is occupied by a brass panel separated from its neighbors by corkscrew-twisted brass posts and bearing in elaborate relief a symbol of an evangelist. On the epistle side are the winged

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

To the Glory of God And in loving memory of William Douglas Gibson and his wife Anne Harrison Drew

human symbolizing St. Matthew and the winged lion of St. Mark. On the gospel side are the eagle of St. John and the winged ox of St. Luke1. The panels are the work of the same hands, but unlike the others, the panel bearing the lion of St. Mark does not include a banner containing the evangelist’s name. We don’t know why. The pulpit’s center face panel is also of brass. It is a cross at the center of which is, in relief, a lamb, the symbol of Christ, triumphant. Across the lower portion is the Christogram IHS. On the wooden base, below the center panel, there is a brass plate with this inscription:

William Douglas Gibson, who lived from 1814 to 1894, was one of seven children. His brother, the Rev. Churchill Jones Gibson, is recognized as the founder of Christ and Grace Episcopal Church in Petersburg. Mr. Gibson is described as a “well known merchant” in Richmond. In 1858, he was elected to the first vestry of Grace Church, and was chosen as Senior Warden. He occupied both offices for the rest of his life. The memorial resolution adopted by that vestry at his death calls him a “liberal supporter” of the church, and an “earnest soldier” of the “church militant”, observing that “the loss of a soldier from the ranks

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

of the church militant has only added another redeemed soul to the ranks of the church triumphant.” The pulpit and its base were donated to Grace Church in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Gibson by “their child,” probably Adeline Douglas Gibson (Mrs. Robert Bromfield) Green. How they came to be installed in the GHTC chancel is by strange coincidence intertwined with the story of the lectern, and is related below. The lectern is entirely of brass. The book stand rests on a central post and two curlicue side supports that enclose star-shaped decorations. The post rises from a hemispherical base resting on three feet in the form of prone lions. Half-posts, topped by silhouette “fleurs de lis”, rise from the lions’ backs and are joined by curved members to the central post. In a band around the upper portion of the base is inscribed: To the Glory of God A mother’s loving memory of her son Charles Talcott Myers aged 12 years A.D. 1887 The lectern posts share corkscrew form with the pulpit’s posts and the newel posts of the chancel steps’ handrails. This shared feature, which unifies the three prominent metalwork pieces at the front of the chancel, is probably coincidental, since the pulpit and the lectern were given to different churches at different times. It’s possible that they were designed and made by

the same craftsmen, but no maker’s mark could be found on the exterior of either. The lectern and the chapel lectern were given to Moore Memorial Chapel in December of 1887 by Frances “Fannie” Trigg Colquhoun (Mrs. Edmund Trowbridge Dana) Myers whose son Charles had died in April of the same year. She was thanked by the vestry thus: “hearty and sincere thanks ...be rendered to Mrs. Myers for the beautiful present to the church of the two lecterns . . . .” The inscription on her son’s grave marker, next to his parents’ in Hollywood Cemetery, begins “Fell asleep,” a reference often used on the late 19th Century graves of children. Charles’s elder brother Edmund, invariably referred to as E.T.D. Myers, Jr., served on the Moore Memorial vestry from 1887 until 1896. During this term he was appointed “to superintend the work now being done on the new Church building.” His last recorded act as a vestryman was to present “a plan for a pulpit”—an indication that the newly built Church had no pulpit or, more likely, that the pulpit it had was unsatisfactory. Whatever his plan may have been, the ultimate solution of the pulpit problem—installation of the Grace Church pulpit—wasn’t in it. But that was not Mr. Myers’ last involvement with the pulpit. After the merger of Grace Church and Holy Trinity Church received congregational approval in March of 1924, the vestry and congregation of the newly named Grace and Holy Trinity Church voted to sell all the property of Grace Church “other than memorials” to The

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

People’s Church of Richmond. The Grace Church pulpit is a memorial, and apparently even before the sale was approved, there was talk of putting it in the GHTC chancel. This was somewhat alarming to E.T.D. Myers, Jr. He and his sister wrote a letter which was read at a GHTC vestry meeting in June of 1924. In it, they advised that “the lectern in the pulpit was a memorial presented to the church by their father in memory of their brother . . . and that they hoped it was not planned to move it.” The letter suggests that the pulpit was then not much more than a platform for the lectern to stand on— perhaps this had been Mr. Myers’ plan thirty years ago—and no match for the splendid Grace Church pulpit. Two vestrymen were appointed to confer with Mr. Myers on the subject, and the Grace Church pulpit “matter” continued to percolate in the GHTC vestry for the next few months. The minutes of the September, 1925, vestry meeting record its resolution thus:

[t]he rector reported that with the consent of all parties the Grace Church pulpit had been installed in the chancel at Grace and Holy Trinity Church in the place always occupied by the pulpit, and that the brass parties [sic] of the pulpit, which had been for many years used as such in Holy Trinity Church, and which had been given by the Myers family, had been saved at the right hand side of the chancel to be used as a lectern, and that the lectern, formerly in the chancel, also a memorial from the Myers family, had been placed near the baptismal font for use at baptismal services.

And it continues to be “saved” at the right hand (the epistle side) of the chancel today, although the lectern “placed near the baptismal font” has been moved to the chapel. As we admire the pulpit and lectern, beautiful adornments of our Church now well into their second century of use, it should be with gratitude to the child and the mother who gave them, and for the lives of the parents and the child in whose memories they were given. These memories may now have vanished, but the pulpit and lectern were given first to the glory of God, and that is eternal. Jim Featherstone

Photographs by Bo Millner 1. There are both Old (Ezekiel 1:10) and New (Revelation 4:7) Testament sources for these symbols. You can read about their association with particular evangelists here: http://www. sacred-texts.com/lcr/fsca/fsca13.htm.

Grace & Holy Trinity Church . The Anchor . Decorative Art and Craftsmanship . Winter 2016

Grace & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church 8 North Laurel Street Richmond, VA 23220

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Phone 804.359.5628

Fax 804.353.2348

www.ghtc.org

The Anchor is published seasonally by Grace & Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, a parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.

What is our mission?

We are an inclusive, spirited, and Christ-centered urban community that transforms lives.

What is our vision?

Every member will joyfully celebrate Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s love, and the transforming power of that love, in the church, in the city, and in the world. Our behaviors will be guided by our core values of seeking, serving and caring. We will embrace what God has placed around us and strive to improve the life of each person we encounter by focusing on three important areas:

The Spiritual Journey.

Children, Teens, and 20s and 30s.

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty.