The Cathedral of St. John the Divine reopens in New York with fanfare and pageantry. - By David Sessions.

St John's, Resurrected

Restored after a deadly 2001 fire, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights celebrates with pageantry and dignitaries.

By David Sessions Dec 01, 2008 SHARE

ON NOVEMBER 9, 2008, the grounds of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—sitting on a gentle incline at Amsterdam Avenue and 110th street in Manhattan—were eerie. The Gothic structures loomed against a black sky, surrounded by denuded trees, leaf-strewn sidewalks, and weathered signs announcing the cathedral’s renovation. Even the great stairs at the St. John’s main entrance looked desolate, giving no hints of the small group gathered for Evensong within. Inside, Thomas Miller, the cathedral’s Canon for Liturgy and the Arts, stood at a temporary lectern in front of the towering wall that had since 2001 shrouded the altar, choir lofts, and pipe organ. He called attention to the conclusion of the church’s great renovation project, and motioned upward: “In a few weeks, this wall comes down.”

Yesterday, the shrouds came off, the wall came down, and sunlight again poured into the 124-foot high nave. The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine—the largest cathedral and largest Anglican church in the world—welcomed 5,000 New Yorkers and visitors to celebrate the end of the church’s darkness. For those close to the cathedral, the elaborate event was the culmination of seven years, if not a lifetime, of expectation. Everyone remembers the fire that ravaged St. John’s in 2001, but others have watched it undergo over decades of plodding architectural progress.

The Festival Eucharist began with a plaintive saxophone solo that quieted the crowd, then a silent dance. Young women in flowing white dresses with lavender sashes ran into the cathedral’s center aisle. The crowd turned back, startled, to face the stained-glass rose window as invisible drummers sounded a monotone thunderstorm from the rear of the knave. A serpentine representation of flame—a banner on a pole reminiscent of the Chinese dragon dance—writhed high over the crowd, controlled by a white-haired man dressed in black.

When this tableau vivant came to a halt, the congregants turned back, as if looking for a bride. Without warning, the organ pipes on the cathedral’s back wall echoed across the granite expanse. Eyes closed, smiled, wept. The processions began. Stretching from one end of the nave were burning candles; golden Bibles; robes of gold, purple and crimson; crucifixes; swinging thuribles that sent clouds of incense into the air to join the organ blasts. It was all there but angels themselves.

The cathedral’s western facade, featuring the Rose Window.

* * * * *

EVEN IN its famously unfinished state, St. John’s is one of the best known architectural landmarks in New York City, a monument to the fading Gothic revival and an unusual collage of stylistic diversity. Its sepia-toned granite façade is packed with Gothic trademarks: pointed arches, ornate towers, and rows of flying buttresses. The Rose Window on the western façade (left), facing Amsterdam Avenue, has become so familiar that it often serves as the cathedral’s unofficial emblem.