Month: September 2023

This year, 2023, is the 150^th anniversary of the founding of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. On April 16, 1873, the New York State Legislature ratified an Act of Incorporation creating the cathedral as a legal entity. The cathedral’s institutional life began on that date, although nearly twenty years elapsed before the commencement of construction.

Since that time, three major campaigns of construction, spread over a century, created the cathedral we have today. Built of the only material that is truly eternal – stone – it should stand for many more centuries, given proper maintenance. I seldom enter the cathedral without whispering a prayer of thanksgiving for the multitude of stonecutters, glassmakers, carpenters, and hod-carriers whose labor realized the vision of its founders.

But if not for a bishop’s sex scandal, the cathedral might have never been founded.

The Case of Bishop Onderdonk

“He passed his hand in the most indecent manner down her body, so that nothing but the end of her corset-bone prevented his hand from being pressed upon the private parts of her body.”

Such were the lurid allegations against Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk, Bishop of New York, hauled before an ecclesiastical tribunal in 1844 to stand trial before a panel of eighteen of his fellow bishops on charges of “immorality and impurity” with women of his diocese.

Until then, Onderdonk had had a brilliant career in the church. The son of a prominent physician and vestryman of Trinity Church, Onderdonk became a candidate for the priesthood after graduating from Columbia College. He studied theology privately with John Henry Hobart, rector of Trinity Church and Bishop of New York 1816-1830. Hobart, incidentally, was the first to propose an Episcopal cathedral for New York, suggesting a site in Washington Square in 1828, but his idea withered on the vine.

Onderdonk had a rapid ascent up the ecclesiastical career ladder as Hobart’s protégé and, in 1830, his successor. Diocesan historian James Elliot Lindsley provides an assessment of Onderdonk’s character:

He was the hardworking, loyal servant of Hobart and, like the bishop, was likely to quarrel with his associates. But alas, he lacked Hobart’s celebrated grace and charm. One suspects he also had little of the other most endearing Hobart quality: a ready ability to apologize when shown in error … He was speedily made the fourth Bishop of New York in an election that met with general approval, though some of Onderdonk’s best friends regretted a certain coarseness of manner and an unfortunate habit of openly “fondling” his students at the seminary or “often caressing” people he knew well.

Given his proclivity for uninvited intimacy, Onderdonk may well have been guilty of the charges against him. Nevertheless, the tribunal was as much about a rancorous dispute within the Episcopal Church as about Onderdonk’s alleged groping. 

Onderdonk’s episcopate was contemporaneous with the rise of the Oxford Movement, which advocated the revival of certain doctrines and liturgical practices that Anglicanism had abandoned when the Church of England broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 16^th century. There were two factions in the Episcopal Church with respect to the Oxford Movement: on one side, High Church adherents; on the other, Low Church evangelicals, who condemned the movement as “popery.” It was a time when, as one church historian put it: “… dark clouds gathered on the ecclesiastical horizon. The party spirit reared its ugly head to a hitherto unprecedented degree.” 

Onderdonk was an outspoken supporter of the Oxford Movement; the Low Church bishops who initiated the tribunal, determined opponents. The eighteen bishops who heard the case convicted Onderdonk by an 11-7 vote, mainly along Low Church-High Church lines. 

The final stage of the tribunal was a vote on whether to depose Onderdonk (i.e., permanently remove him from office) or to suspend him for a time. He escaped deposition by one vote. Suspension meant that he could no longer perform any of the sacramental offices ordinarily performed by a bishop (e.g., ordination, confirmation). Further, the suspension was for an open-ended period, effectively leaving the Diocese of New York with a do-nothing bishop-for-life.

If the panel of bishops was assuming that Onderdonk would simply resign, they misjudged him. He steadfastly refused to resign, believing that to do so would be tantamount to admitting guilt. Onderdonk maintained his innocence until the day he died – and beyond. A close examination of his tomb in Trinity Church Wall Street, sculpted by John Moffitt, reveals a snake peeking its head out from underneath the bishop’s vestments – the serpent of scandal. From behind the tomb, we see Onderdonk placing his foot on the serpent, as if to crush it.

Until his death in 1861, Onderdonk held the title Bishop of New York. Bishops from other dioceses traveled to New York to perform his duties until 1852, when the diocesan convention installed Jonathan Wainwright as the “provisional bishop.” But Wainwright died only two years into the job. 

Enter Horatio Potter

In 1854, the diocesan convention elected Horatio Potter as the new provisional bishop. He served in this capacity until Onderdonk died, whereupon Potter succeeded him as the full-fledged diocesan bishop. 

The cathedral’s story begins with Horatio Potter, who, had it not been for the Onderdonk affair, might have remained comfortably in Albany as the rector of St. Peter’s Church. Potter, the son of Quaker farmers, was a pacifist and a peacemaker, an ideal shepherd for his frequently fractious flock. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity Church and a charter trustee of the cathedral, described Potter as follows: “Wise, prudent, and skillful, he piloted his diocese through stormy weather, and in dangerous places.”

Potter’s accomplishments include reconciling the northern and southern bishops in the aftermath of the Civil War, creating opportunities for women to serve in the church, and expanding the church’s outreach beyond the carriage trade to the working classes and the poor.

On the day the cathedral was chartered, Potter was 71 years old. What might have motivated him, late in life and two decades into his eventful episcopate, to take on the monumental task of founding, building, and raising the funds for an Episcopal cathedral for New York City?

Stephen Payne Nash

The proximate cause appears to have been a letter from Stephen Payne Nash, an attorney with a specialty in church law and a layman involved in diocesan affairs. Nash, writing on behalf of churchmen both clerical and lay, requested that the bishop raise the matter of a central church at the annual diocesan convention of 1872.

Nash’s letter must have struck a chord with Potter. At the diocesan convention, the bishop presented a vigorous case for the construction of a cathedral, enumerating its many potential benefits, and concluding:

Who can doubt that a fitting Cathedral establishment in this City would become a center of earnest self-denying Church work, from which streams of spiritual blessing would, on the one hand, flow with healing waters into the darkest places of this great City; while, on the other hand, they would spread their influence through the strangers that come here over every part of this vast country. 

– Horatio Potter

On September 28, 1872, the convention unanimously passed resolutions empowering a committee of fifteen clergy and laity to apply for a charter, to raise funds for purchasing a site, and to build “a cathedral church and other buildings in connection with same.” The convention also passed a resolution mandating that “neither the site nor any building to be erected thereon shall at any time be encumbered by mortgage or any other permanent debt.”

On January 3, 1873, Bishop Potter kicked off the project with an organizational meeting at his residence, to which he invited fifteen leading members of the clergy and laity, the cathedral’s first board of trustees. Nash was appointed the secretary of the board, a position he would hold until 1886. 

All but forgotten today, Nash played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the cathedral’s early history. Among other legal matters, he drafted the 1873 charter and negotiated the acquisition of the cathedral’s site from the Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum. He sat on the panel that selected the cathedral’s design and participated in drafting the contract with Heins & La Farge, the cathedral’s original architects. He died in 1898, a few months before the first service was held in the crypt.

A Question of Motive

An oft-told tale is that the impetus for the founding of St. John the Divine was a determination to outrival the Roman Catholics of New York, whose own cathedral was under construction on Fifth Avenue. The story goes that elitist Episcopalians were indignant that their Irish servants should worship in a building large enough to swallow the average Episcopal parish church.

I have seen no evidence to support the notion that St. John the Divine was founded to spite the Catholics with an edifice even grander than St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The founders even anticipated the criticism. Cathedral historian George Wickersham on the early planning: “It was essential to convey the thought that no rivalry was contemplated.” 

The canard may have originated from Catholic resentment of the Episcopalian project, as expressed in an 1887 editorial in the American Catholic News: “What business is it of anyone else if the Protestants of the United States want to erect a large building in New York and desire to call it a Cathedral? … Let the children have their toys.”

The fact is that cathedral building was on many minds in the second half of the 19^th century, as Janet Adams Strong points out in her exhaustive study of the competition to select a design. Overseas, the cathedrals of Cologne and Milan resumed construction after a centuries-long hiatus. In Britain, six cathedrals were begun in the 1860s and 1870s. Both St. Patrick’s and St. John the Divine were American manifestations of this cultural phenomenon.

It is not inconceivable, though, that the diocesan convention’s wave of enthusiasm for the project might have had an undercurrent of rivalry, though not with Catholics, but rather fellow Episcopalians. In 1868, the Diocese of New York reduced its geographic purlieu by spinning off two new dioceses, Albany and Long Island. On June 8, 1872, the new Diocese of Albany committed to creating a central church to be known as the Cathedral of All Saints. 

Isn’t it intriguing that only three months later, the Diocese of New York unanimously approved a cathedral for New York City? Did the downstate Episcopalians fear being outdone by their upstate brethren? Could they risk the provincial state capital surpassing the cosmopolitan city in ecclesiastical grandeur? If there was in fact a rivalry, then the Albanians triumphed, completing the darkly atmospheric All Saints while the New Yorkers were still shopping for a site.

A Slow Start

Once the Legislature granted the charter, the trustees began searching for a place to build. Three trustees each pledged $100,000 (about $2.5 million today) for the purchase of a site. They focused the search on what was then the northern frontier of the fashionable district, the block bordered by West 57^th and 58^th Streets and Sixth and Seventh Avenues, known today as Billionaire’s Row. 

The Panic of 1873 ushered in the worst depression of the 19^th century and thwarted all hopes of raising the necessary funds to purchase a site and commence construction. The severity of the financial crisis forced two of the trustees to withdraw their pledges. In the following years, the board of trustees continued to meet periodically to satisfy the requirements for maintaining the status of the corporate charter, but there was scant progress toward acquiring a suitable site.

Bishop Potter’s failing health forced him to withdraw from public appearances in 1883. He convened his last board meeting at his bedside shortly before his death in 1887. By then, his nephew and successor, Henry Codman Potter, had revived the project. When H.C. Potter laid the cornerstone of the cathedral five years later, it was one more link in a chain of events that began with Bishop Onderdonk’s scandal, his substitute’s premature death, and Horatio Potter’s arrival in New York as the replacement.

Horatio Potter was buried in Poughkeepsie, close to his childhood home. In 1921, his remains were translated to the sarcophagus directly behind the High Altar. Should the bishop ever resurrect, I have no doubt that he will gaze upon the cathedral’s majestic interior with gratitude and wide-eyed wonder. 

But he will be quite surprised to find himself up on Morningside Heights, given his own preference for a suitable site: “I should regret it very much if a site should be selected too high uptown or too far west of Fifth Avenue.”

See Divine Stone’s October 2021 posts about the Founder’s Tomb

Bishop Potter’s Tomb, October 22,2021

Isidore Konti’s Proposal, October 27, 2021

Many thanks to diocesan archivist Wayne Kempton for his kind assistance with the research for this article.

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Sources:

Cathedral League. Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (New York: St. Bartholomew’s Press, 1916).

Chorley, E. Clowes. “Benjamin Tredwell Onderdonk” in Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, March 1940, pp. 1-51.

Dolkart, Andrew S. Morningside Heights: A History of its Architecture & Development (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

Haddad, Ann. “My Conscience Acquits Me” in Merchant’s House Museum, November 14, 2018.

Hall, Edward Hagamann. A Guide to the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (New York: Laymen’s Club, 1928).

Lindsley, James Elliott. This Planted Vine: A Narrative History of the Episcopal Diocese of New York (New York: Harper & Row, 1984).

Manning, William Thomas. Sermon Preached by the Right Reverend William Thomas Manning, Bishop of New York, in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on Saint John the Evangelist Day 1921 at the Dedication of the Founder’s Tomb. (Project Canterbury, transcribed by Wayne Kempton, 2007).

Strong, Janet Adams. The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York: Design Competitions in the Shadow of H.H. Richardson, 1889-1891 (Dissertation, Brown University, 1990).

Wickersham, George W. The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (C. Harrison Conroy Co., n.d.).

“Stephen P. Nash Dead,” New York Times, June 5, 1898. 

“The Episcopal Convention,” New York Times, September 27, 1872. 

Lee Lawrie and the central portal of the west front began from this 1927 letter. After successfully completing a model for one of the statues for the portal, the Trustees of the Cathedral awarded the preparation of all models for the sculpture for the central portal of the west front of the Cathedral.

The following quote from the minutes of the Fabric Committee is provided by the Cathedral Archives.

Extract from The Fabric Committee minutes, May 24 1927: It was recommended that the Trustees adopt the following.

“RESOLVED, that Mr. Lee Lawrie be chosen to execute the sculpture of the Central Portal of the West Front at a total cost of $118,000 — models $67,000. Cutting 50,300.

“RESOLVED, that Mr. John Angel be chosen as the sculptor for the North and South Portals of the West Front at a cost of $98,000. –models $54,000 – cutting $44,600; and that a contract with him be made to furnish the models for the South Portal at a cost of $27,000.”

The Trustees proceeded to cause contracts to be issued to both men. Lawrie was advised of the award and responded to Cram and Ferguson:

Your letter of June 10th, telling me that Mr. Cram and the trustees have decided to entrust the sculpture of the Central Portal of the Cathedral to me, makes me feel very good. The work will be a joyous labor for me.

– Lee Lawrie

Below Lee Lawrie describes the subjects for the central portal as well as the Majestas above them and ancillary sculpture.

The Models

Here Tom Fedorek adds some commentary on the symbolism of the basestones. “Isaac – it appears to be the ram caught in a thicket. A reminder of how Isaac was almost sacrificed by his father Abraham. An angel directing Abraham’s attention to the ram saved Issac. At Chartres, on the porch of the north transept — the exemplar for this portal — Abraham is depicted with a juvenile Isaac and there’s a ram on the basestone beneath them. Joseph is easy — it’s a papyrus plant signifying Egypt.

“As for Moses — It looks like a city gate or a fortress or a temple. None of which make any sense for the Moses narrative. He and the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, where there weren’t any cities or temples. Moses built a tabernacle, a kind of tent, to house the ark of the covenant. There wouldn’t be a permanent temple for many generations after Moses.”

The date of the above image is unknown. Presumably it is from the early or mid 1930’s. The three figures modeled represent half of the statues for the north jamb. It is also unknown if Lawrie created others. There were no additional images.

Other West Front Models

There are, however, additional images in the archives representing Lawrie’s sculptural models of a very different style. A style closer to the Art-Deco work at Rockefeller Center than to the traditional figure work shown of Isaac, Joseph and Moses. They appear below:

These models may have been for the upper rank of figures above the prophets or they may have been modeled for the archivolts. Again, Tom Fedorek identifies the symbolism of these figures.

“The trio of angels are from the Book of Revelation, aka the Apocalypse. The giveaway is the first angel’s Greek inscription APOKALYPTON. The angel with the stone appears in Rev 18:21-24: ‘Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence…’ The angel with the sickle appears in Rev 14:17-20 ‘And another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle…So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered up the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God…”

Fast Forward 10 years

It is 1937 and a few years before the reopening of the full Cathedral with the completed Nave. Other than the Majestas, none of the models have been carved. Cram and Ferguson write to the Cathedral that Mr. Lawrie is requesting some additional payment for his work. A portion of the June 24, 1937 letter from C.N. Godfrey of Cram and Ferguson to Dean Gates appears below.

Cram and Ferguson go on to advise the Cathedral that there appears to be no legal obligation but perhaps one of good will and a wish to do justice to everyone connected with the building. The Cathedral made the payment and obtained a complete release from Mr. Lawrie. Because of the slow and incomplete work of Lee Lawrie on his contract and the multiple changes in general contractors the central portal was never carved. Once the complete length of the Cathedral was opened and the decision to refrain from further building was made after WWII, it would be almost 50 years before Dean Morton would hire Simon Verity to complete work on the central portal, now known as the Portal of Paradise. Mr. Verity did not make models, he employed direct carving methods on all the statues.

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• Many thanks to Wayne Kempton the Diocesan Archivist for taking time to send us the correspondence and the images for this story.
• Thanks also to Tom Fedorek, Senior Guide, for his exquisite knowledge of liturgical symbolism.

Lee Lawrie’s Christ in Majesty or sometimes the “Majestus”, is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world. The image develops from Early Christian Art as described in the Apocalypse of John.

The Full Size Model

The Ardolino extended stone carving family likely carved this sculpture. The general contractor employed them on the west front at this time

Lee Oskar Lawrie (1877 – 1963)

The work of sculptor Lee Lawrie is associated with some of America’s most noted buildings of the first half of the Twentieth Century. Lawrie’s style evolved through modern Gothic to Beaux-Arts and finally in to Moderne or Art Deco. He created the mighty Atlas at Rockefeller Center and sculpted the highly dramatic facade of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. His largest commission, the Nebraska State Capitol sculptures, remains one of his most creative. Lawrie taught sculpture at Yale and Harvard.

At the age of 14, Lee became a studio assistant to Chicago sculptor Henry H. Park. Shortly thereafter, he got a job at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. From there he worked for a number of world-class sculptors including Augustus Saint-Gaudens. In 1895 he approached Bertram Goodhue of Cram and Goodhue and with his demonstrated skills was hired.

Lawrie’s collaborations with Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue brought him to the forefront of architectural sculptors in the United States. After the breakup of the Cram, Goodhue firm he remained a favorite of Cram; however, Lawrie continued to work mostly with Goodhue.

Lawrie created a great deal of sacred art in all of Goodhue’s churches in NYC and beyond. Goodhue and Lawrie worked on more than a hundred buildings including St. Thomas church on 5th Avenue where Lawrie sculpted the famous reredos.

The Cathedral Commission

The Cathedral commission was much larger in scope than the creation of the Majestus sculpture. It involved modeling statuary for the main portal, the work that was eventually done by direct carver Simon Verity. Why the statues were never executed is still a bit of a mystery, but we talk about most of the facts of the matter next time.

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• We are Grateful to Wayne Kempton, Diocesan Archivist, for the information and the images of Lee Lawrie’s models.