The Symbolism of the Bas-Relief Sculptures of a Pelican and a Phoenix Over the Entrance Doorways to the Saint Joan of Arc Church Harrowgate Philadelphia

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From childhood I always wondered why there were sculptures of birds and not saints over the doorways of my church in Philly. Nobody seemed to know. Nobody wanted to ask.

Just two doorways as an entrance. One left and one right. The two door configuration seemed to work alright but I always thought not very symmetrical when a bishop came for Confirmation or the May Procession proceeded through one door or the other and not a central third door.

The Priest who founded Saint Joan of Arc seemed to be of very moderate Protestant tastes in that he was born in Wales, educated in London, Canada and Wisconsin before becoming an Episcopalian priest at the turn of the last century.

The Church is a very simple early Romanesque with little adornment or fancy stained glass.  The one rather chic addition to the interior was a dozen mosaics about four foot in circular medallions in between round Roman arches. These Icon style mosaics of the twelve Apostles have backgrounds of gold backed glass mosaic tiles. Impressive if you focus on them but rarely notice them as they are so high up. 

At this point in time I am speculating and going on some historic research and oral tradition that these twelve Apostles Mosaics are recycled from an historic lineage downtown church of St. James once located at 22^nd and Walnut Streets and by the Philadelphia artist Nicola D’Ascencio more famous for this stained glass than his mosaics.

The altar area of Saint Joan’s is also a rather plain sparse area. Even the unmarried Jesus is clean shaven on the Cross there. 

I have also further speculated at this point in time that the altar and altar screen of that defunct Episcopal Church of St. James may have also been on a wish list of Monsignor Edwards Hawks as he built his dream church to cap a career of writing, lecturing and converting to the RC church from the Episcopal early in his career. 

The altar and altar screen of St. James remained in storage until after Msgr. Hawks’s death and was sold to another Episcopal church in the suburbs. Have to wonder if it is one thing to sell iconic mosaics to a Catholic church but maybe the idea of an altar and altar screen was a bit too ecumenical for the times in the middle 1950s.

Back to the doorways. And the decorative bas-reliefs of a Pelican in a nest feeding its young over the left front door and a Phoenix rising from ashes above the right side door.

Having done some cursory research, I see no major issues in dogma regarding RC church design and the use of left and right. There is a distinction in that the left hand side of the church is called the pulpit and or gospel side in terms of the reading of sacred text. The right hand side is referred to the as the lectern and or epistle side of the church and of course refers to the reading of lesser sacred text from that side. 

Also of note, the left side is the pulpit side where the priest reads the gospel aloud and the right hand side is considered more the lay side in that the laity many times read the epistles rather than a priest.

Also from tradition, the bride and groom side of the church is left to right with any reason lost in history. And as a child the children’s mass at 9:00 AM on Sunday morning had the girls side on the left and the boys on the right. 

Secular and or pagan traditions put the left side as the female side and the right side as the masculine side. So too with ancient non-Christian or pre-Christian tradition has the female side associated with the moon and the male side associated with the symbol of the sun.

With all this minor background, I found that the Pelican is a basic Christian symbol of Charity and loosely based on the sacrifice of a parent to feed its young.

Better than that:

Elizabeth I of England adopted the symbol, portraying herself as the "mother of the Church of England". Nicholas Hilliard painted the Pelican Portrait in around 1573, now owned by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. A pelican feeding her young is depicted in an oval panel at the bottom of the title page of the first (1611) edition of the King James Bible. ~~~ - “Pelican” – Wikipedia

Pelican Detail of Above Portrait

The Phoenix has a long cultural basis going back to ancient times and even before the Greek and Romans to the Egyptians to the Bennu bird as part of Egyptian god mythology and a creature representing rebirth for the dead, a creature that came into its own being at or as part of the first creation scenario and as a symbol of the sun.

In a way the Egyptians worshiped or honored the Bennu bird as a symbol of the everyday sun dying at night and being reborn each morning.

Other cultures have the whys and wherefores of the Phoenix bird in slightly different capacities and in lengths of time in terms of the cycles of a Phoenix’s never ending life. 

The Romans used the Phoenix on their coins to symbolize the supposed indestructibility of their empire.

The Pelican and Phoenix above Saint Joan's doorways are of course framed within a triangle, symbolic of the Christian Trinity and the three fold purpose of one God.

So, in short I believe that Msgr. Hawks put a piece of his life history into the stone of Saint Joan of Arc Church in Harrowgate. 

First with the Pelican as his beginning in the Episcopal church, American offshoot of the Church of England after the American Revolution with England, and second with a Phoenix rising out the ashes of his old life as an Episcopalian priest and his rebirth as a RC priest. 

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Fascism vs. Secularism – Joe the Pope vs. Freedom

There is quite a row going on in the British Press regarding Joe the Pope’s upcoming visit in September.

British protest Pope's swipe at U.K. equality laws

Joe the Pope, fresh from victories and a surprise blitzkrieg on Rowan Williams’ Church of England, arrogantly wants it to be known that he thinks that existing and proposed Equality laws in the United Kingdom are “against natural law”. In other words it is okay to discriminate against women and homosexuals in hiring and the use of public services.

Joe was really hitting out at British Freedoms I think, because of his church being cut out of the cash action when five “catholic” adoption agencies could no longer discriminate against gays wanting to adopt children under recent laws guaranteeing rights of all including gays to be treated equally.

These adoption agencies by the way did not close shop. They merely had to break official ties to the RC church and continue in operation. People in the UK are sensitive to the needs of its workers to keep their jobs no matter what a bigoted reactionary medieval church thinks is “natural law”. This is of course ludicrous. The Roman Empire hated all things natural. The pope’s morality based on nature is really only based on Constantine’s Army Manual of do’s and don’t in the conquest and suppression of all captives and slaves.

Getting back to the present. Britain is more European in a sense that church and state are loosely connected. It is kind of like their Monarchy – totally archaic and irrelevant but sometimes good for the tourist dollars. There are some Anglican Bishops in the upper house of their Parliament or House of Lords. The Church of England is the official faith of the country but in a secular world – that blows – in the face of reality.

There is pending legislation to lift exemptions specifically on priests and clergy from their Medieval rights to discriminate against gays and women in the workplace etc.

Which brings us back to the reactionary Anglicans, the British version of Episcopalians on this side of the Atlantic. Talk about being all F*cked up. You have these Anglican priests and bishops who can marry who do not want women to be priests and bishops. An extension of the hate thing against women goes to their homophobia against gays. So rather than be human and Jesus-like, these Anglican pricks want to take their parishes, churches and wives over to the RC church, which is waiting with buggering arms to greet them.

Joe the Pope, in typical German arrogance, is ready to enter Britain, not as a visiting head of state, but as a conquering hero – a salvation to all the women hating and gay hating Anglican clergy.

Throughout all this, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, religious head of the Church of England, has turned his cheek so to speak. He was dissed by Joe the Pope when Joe recently ordered a fast track cutting of red tape to welcome any dissenting Anglican clergy into the ranks of the RC church. In a way, I think Rowan is glad to get rid of all the “white trash clergy” so to speak, and to gladly send them over to hell so to speak.

In the meanwhile the British public and the British Press are in a stink about Joe the Pope and his entering Britain in triumph. This former German Army private who once swore an army oath to Adolph Hitler, is not really putting out the right vibes to the Brits.

There is a petition going around the Internet to forbid the government from paying for any expenses of this dissing, Freedom hating potentate. I think that by September Joe the Pope will not be able to piss on Henry VIII’s grave as planned for in the hoped for wish list papal itinerary.

I think that maybe Joe the Pope will understand what fellow catholic Newt Gingrich felt when he became the most hated man in America when he was Speaker of the House and stopped printing social security and welfare checks.

Joe the Pope by September may be the most hated man not only in Britain but also in Europe as well.

So it goes.

Cathedral Spaces - St. John Divine NYC

In walking distance, it is maybe eight or nine blocks from the extreme northern end of Central Park. It is the crown on top of the so-called fashionable upper west end of Manhattan. It is the southern boundary of the Columbia University campus. I am of course talking about the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine - 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, New York City.

All sorts of adjectives and descriptions for this unfinished mish mash of styles, Romanesque and Gothic. The Nave is 600 feet long, the size of two American football fields laid end to end. It is second only in size to St. Peter’s in Rome. I am not certain where that big church in the Ivory Coast fits in, in terms of size, volumes etc.

This perhaps quiet, unforgotten gem of New York City architecture has been in building mode in spurts and stops since 1892. Many say that this seat of the Episcopal Bishop of New York is a dodo bird of sorts. It defies description but its internal space is why I am writing about it. One brief building period in the middle eighties to middle ninties added fifty feet (one third) of the Southwest bell tower in first photo above. It will not be finished in my lifetime.

I first encountered this behemoth structure in the middle of an May rain storm over thirty years ago. Getting out of the rain was indeed a pleasure but I have not stepped into any other such a magnificent space since. I have been in Notre Dame in Paris and only have a vague memory of it except that I thought it rather plain for all the hype. The average tourist never makes it here unless on a tour bus or religious bus tour package. It is as hidden a treasure to native New Yorkers as it is to the accidental tourist who, like me, literally stumbles upon its sheer space and audacity of being.

I have not been there since the fire and the smoke damage that required extensive and expensive cleanup. Less smoke damage would have occured if they has broken the stained glass to vent the fire. The officials at the Cathedral asked the fire marshall not to touch the windows which led to seven years of clean up that now has put the building on par with anything of Medieval European religious gothic architecture in official tourist guide books.

My first impression there had to do with that of the sheer size. The darkness of its soot covered interior walls was a result of having been submitted to fifty years of old New York City coal burning for heat and cooking in the air and reaching inside an open and unfinished church.

That dark space I feel to this day and a sense of what an astronaut must feel floating in outerspace, as I looked up into a seeming infinite darkness. When they finally opened the church in 1941, they put a temporary plywood dome over the unfinished transept expecting to finish the work after WWII. Funny how that temporary roof painted black made for such magic inside with a few electric lights, votive candles and gloomy exterior rain filled light making a faint register through blue colbalt colored stained glass.

Now over a hundred years of coal soot and fire smoke damage and general grime are cleaned up. The building was rededicated in late 2008.

The cathedral, not so crowded as with the huge number of midtown tourists that frequent the likes of St. Patrick's, makes this place a very quiet and meditative sort of place.

There is plenty of artwork, tapestries, icons, statues and it has a Holocaust memorial sculpture. It is an all purpose building that fits into the secular needs of the nearby Columbia University community. It is host to concerts, plays and even the annual blessings for animals small and big as elephants if need be.

It is a place where famous people, well loved people, have their post mortal memorials because of the thousands of people who can crowd into the space. I recall the author James Baldwin's memorial service took place there. It seemed appropriate since the rear of the cathedral sits on a slight hill and overlooks most of Harlem.

A very interesting place.

Here is a dated review of the place from the Ship of Fools website that reviews services and architecture of houses of worship worldwide.

1164: Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York City

And of course the annual Francis of Assisi Animal blessing.



I close in quote from the first video above.

"It moves me intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. It illustrates what architecture can do to the human animal. What an expression that architecture can be to the human spirit” --Alfred Blanco, Cathedral docent

Highlights of a Cathedral’s Rehabilitation
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The 80% Christian

I had mentioned something in one of my previous posts about being of a same mind with some early nineteenth Unitarian beliefs. Not claiming to be any expert on that dogma, here is a quote from John Adams:

"The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.” -- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (January 23, 1825).

I have read somewhere that Unitarians like Adams at that time did not think much of Concept of the Trinity with Jesus being less than a full third - or not being the sharpest point on that triangle. In other words, people then thought that Jesus was definitely more human than divine but that his words and teachings were worth examining and holding onto in a religion context.

So too, I often wonder if the Greco-Roman concept of Jesus as the Son of God, how can he be equal to or just one third at the same time? Thirty three and one third percent does not add up to one hundred percent in my math book. A son is just a son and a father is just a father? Just shut up and label it mystery. Right?

I guess in the strictest sense of Christianity I might be labeled an 80% Christian. I am not going anywhere and have done more research on the subject than the average Joe. I am who I am. I am what I am. And God’s grace in me I do not believe fruitless.

An Episcopalian priest has just been defrocked for trying to believe in two major monotheistic faiths – Christianity and Islam.

This is not an April Fool's joke --- Episcopal Priest defrocked

The Seattle priest first became aware of the Islamic tradition in 2005 when St. Mark's Cathedral invited a Muslim leader as an interfaith guest. Redding was impressed with his prayer which sparked her interest in Islam and eventually lead to her making her Shahada -- Islamic profession of faith - in 2006. This eventually cost her the Episcopal priesthood and forced Bishop Wolf's decisive actions. Basically, the Shahada asks the Muslim to affirm: "There is no god but God and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God."

For almost two years, Bishop Wolf has patiently worked with Dr. Redding to help clarify her mixed religious beliefs and practices as well as her commitment to Jesus Christ through the Christian sacerdotal priesthood as an Episcopalian.

In July 2007, the bishop originally issued a Pastoral Direction to Dr. Redding inhibiting her from all priestly and diaconal duties. In a letter to her priests, the diocesan council and standing committee, the Rhode Island bishop explained why she disciplined the theologically straying Seattle priest...

April 1, 2009 ...Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim. Consequently, as a result of the abandonment of the Communion of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Wolf imposed a sentence of deposition in accordance with the Canons of the Church.

The priest is/was the Rev. Dr. Ann Redding. Her bishop in Rhode Island took the bold step to establish some discipline about something, anything and not focus on the other ugly, ignorant things within the decaying crumbling Episcopal church - like the still current and enthusiastic witch hunt against gays. Anybody got a match?

Perhaps Dr. Redding was at one point a 50% Christian and a 50% Muslim. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps she in wrong in accepting that there is no God but God and Mohammed is one of his prophets/messengers. Or –let me try this. There is no God but God and Jesus is one of his prophets/messengers. She can’t call Jesus a prophet? Can she? He got elevated to godhood in a Greco-Roman cultural context as in Hercules, son of Zeus cultural context. Right?

The more I study about Jesus the more I know he is real and his true message is hidden amidst the baggage and fears imposed on him by the God Emperor Constantine who adopted Jesus as his political arm and son and inducted him into his newly invented Pagan Catholicism.

Constantine was 50% Roman God and 50% Pagan Catholic. Other than that I think a better percentage to describe him was something like 5% Christian in that he may or may not have even bothered to join his own new religion - not even on his deathbed.

Reminds me of the grade school myth told us every year by the nuns about how George Washington went to heaven because he knew that as a Protestant he would go straight to hell. So on this deathbed and delirious as he was he sent for a Jesuit to save himself by conversion to the one truth faith. Believe that? Yeah. Hey I got shares in the Brooklyn Bridge – very valuable in that they are going to start charging tolls there soon.

There is a line in the movie Gandhi (1982) when the great soul (mahatma) talks of religious services when he was a young boy and the person conducting the religious service was quoting from both Hindu sacred texts (Vedas) and the Muslim’s Quran side by side.

From the movie:

Gandhi: “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you.”

Just a movie script but powerful words not unlike the dynamic words of Jesus who if you seek him out – he cuts through all the religious bullshit and cuts the mustard in my book of life. The movie is secular but the message seems sacred. In this presently spinning overloaded technical world, where does the sacred stop and the secular begin? Or is the modern age a centrifuge pulling all similar ideas and things together into one item.

I don’t know where to stand on Dr. Redding’s embrace of another perhaps legitimate faith in the concept of God. I think she is ahead of the curve and the merging of the best aspects of Christianity and Islam and Buddhism is upon us in this 21st century of this magnificent dawning common era of humankind.

I don’t know what is in Dr. Redding’s heart. I do say good luck and good labor opening up a new pathway to heaven for those of us trailing far behind you.

Semantics may temporarily serve the old dying churches in Rome or Canterbury.

Others with true faith and love of God do not care what you call or label him/her/it – There is no God but God.

The thing about spirituality and faith and getting through life on crutches of belief/faith or is it floating on air with wings of prayer – these things are perhaps only perception awakenings (light) and not perception problems (blindness).