{"id":3604,"date":"2010-09-20T13:53:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T17:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=3604"},"modified":"2010-09-20T13:53:46","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T17:53:46","slug":"the-protestant-purification-vs-christopher-wren-a-love-story-of-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/the-protestant-purification-vs-christopher-wren-a-love-story-of-irony\/","title":{"rendered":"The Protestant Purification Vs. Christopher Wren: A Love Story of Irony"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 after he instated the Act of Supremacy he had no real intention of actually repudiating Catholic ideals (for more information go here<\/a>).\u00a0 He maintained the highly ornamented and ritualized structure of mass and design of churches and chapels.\u00a0 However, after he died and Anglicanism came into its own under his son, Edward VI, churches were stripped of their decorations and a strict and Spartan design was adopted.\u00a0 While throughout Anglican history the form of worship and the tenets evolved with the monarch, Protestantism has maintained a more austere stance on the level of decoration within a church.\u00a0 Catholicism, on the other hand, is famous (or in some schools of thought, infamous) for its lavish decorations, rich priestly garbs, and overall sumptuous appearance.\u00a0 The pinnacle of this over-the-top wealth is the site of the Holy See \u2013 the Vatican is a treasure trove literally overflowing with priceless paintings, sculptures, and breathtaking frescoes.\u00a0 Just like the Vatican \u2013 the center of Catholicism \u2013 St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral (a central symbol of Anglicanism) is overrun with artwork, statues, and mosaics dedicated to celebrating the life of Christ.<\/p>\n

When I first walked into St. Paul\u2019s I was struck with the irony that this great cathedral presented.\u00a0 I had expected Westminster to be decorated past the usual point of Protestant sobriety, after all it did start out as a Catholic church, and the same went for the Abby at Bath; I did not expect this from St. Paul\u2019s.\u00a0 The current St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, built by Christopher Wren, was never a Catholic church and so does not have this excuse to pardon its grandeur.\u00a0 Instead of adhering to the typical ideals of a Protestant church (a lack of idolatry and an overall more simple and modest atmosphere), St. Paul\u2019s rivaled any Catholic church (with the exception of the Vatican).\u00a0 I was surprised by the overall un-Protestant nature of the Cathedral.\u00a0 Everywhere I looked, in every spare niche, nook, and cranny, was ornamentation of some sort.\u00a0\u00a0 This highly structured aesthetic was not contained in just the architecture \u2013 evensong was a series of highly ritualized acts.\u00a0 From the initial procession in (scepters and all) through the singing to the end with the parade out, the structure of the ceremony was both beautiful and archaic.\u00a0 While I was sitting there I reflected upon the fact that the service I was listening to was sung in the same manner it was 400 years ago (with the exception on the presence of female deaconesses).\u00a0 It was both a humbling and confusing experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the opposite side of the expectations spectrum, the Catholic mass I attended was performed in a modern and simplistic manner.\u00a0 The chapel was just a little side room in the Newman House \u2013 a building that would have been easy to miss just walking down the street save for the flags put up to celebrate the upcoming arrival of the pope \u2013 and the actual chapel itself was noticeably bare.\u00a0 There were small figures marking the Stations of the Cross, a small and ugly bust of Cardinal Newman, an alter, and one painting of the Madonna and Child.\u00a0 This was a far cry from the reputation of ornamentation that the Catholic Church is saddled with as well as a telling foil for the overwhelming d\u00e9cor of St. Paul\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This comparison and its ironic implications got me thinking about what exactly the difference is between the Cathedrals and Abbeys of the Church of England I\u2019ve visited and the Catholic service I attended mean.\u00a0 It seems to me that Christopher Wren was not focusing on designing a building that was a place to worship God and to adhere to a particular brand of faith \u2013 he was more creating a symbol of England at its most lavish time (we learned all about the excesses of Restoration England on yesterday\u2019s walking tour) that would call out to all who saw it how great, mighty, and powerful England was and still is today.\u00a0 It is less a place of worship for God than a hall of worship for England.\u00a0 I have not visited any Anglican churches that are used as community places of worship instead of as monuments and I am curious to see if the local churches in Norwich have the same level of ornamentation or whether they adhere to a simpler, more Protestant appearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 after he instated the Act of Supremacy he had no real intention of actually repudiating Catholic ideals (for more information go here).\u00a0 He maintained the highly ornamented and ritualized structure of mass and design of churches and chapels.\u00a0 However, after he died and Anglicanism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":446,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6678,93],"tags":[15183,2296,15121,15156,969],"class_list":["post-3604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-amy","category-churches-and-cathedrals","tag-catholic-church","tag-church-of-england","tag-newman-house","tag-pope-benedict-xvi","tag-st-pauls-cathedral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/446"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}