Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
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Grace Cathedral is an episcopal cathedral located on Nob Hill in San Francisco, California. It is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of California, once state-wide in area, now comprising parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Because it is famed for its replica of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise two labyrinths, varied stained glass windows, Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece, and medieval and contemporary furnishings, as well as its 44 bell carillon, three organs, and choirs, the Cathedral has become an international pilgrimage center for church-goer and visitor alike.
It contains one of only seven remaining Episcopal men and boys cathedral choirs, along with two other choirs with its corresponding boys K-8 school in the United States, along with Washington National Cathedral. Its director of music]] and choirmaster is Jeffery Smith.
Grace Cathedral is one of very few cathedrals that is linked with a school. That school, the Cathedral School for Boys is in its courtyards and sacristy. It has roughly 200 students and is one of the most prestigious of the private K-8 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The current dean is the Very Reverend Alan Jones. He is also the moderator of The Forum at Grace Cathedral.
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[edit] History
Its ancestral parish, Grace Church, was founded in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. The Cathedral is the daughter of historic Grace Church. The first little chapel was built in the gold rush year of 1849, and the imposing third church, for a time called Grace "Cathedral", was destroyed in the fire following the 1906 earthquake. The railroad baron/banker Crocker family gave their ruined Nob Hill property for a diocesan cathedral, which took its name and founding congregation from the nearby parish.
Dean J. Wilmer Gresham nurtured the young cathedral, and work began on the present structure in 1928. Designed in French Gothic style by Lewis P. Hobart, it was completed in 1964 as the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the nation.
In September of 1957 the Cathedral School For Boys was opened in its bell towers. It was founded by the Dean C. Julian Bartlett and some parents seeking a alternative to the other private schools in San Francisco. On June 3, 1965 the school's current building was created inside the Cathedral's sacristy. One year later on September 12, 1966 the new school building was opened.
[edit] Keiskamma Altarpiece
The Keiskamma Altarpiece will be hosted in Grace Cathedral from March 27 to May 12, 2007.
The Keiskamma Altarpiece is a large work of art created in Hamburg, South Africa, a fishing town ravaged by AIDS. It was created by 120 women and men to remember the dead and look to the future. Many of these women died during the six months it took to complete. The altarpiece consists of three panels of beads, wire, photographs and embroidery. It is based on the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald. The first panel shows two grandmothers and orphans, gathered around a widow with a faint cross seen behind her. Under it is her son's funeral and death in a hospital. The second panel shows fish, a dancing god, the village of Hamburg and the tree of life. The final panel shows the orphans and grandmothers shown in the first panel in a photograph. Above the Photograph are flowers and plants made completely out of beads. In those plants are the four gospels. On each side of the photographs are the names of the women who died making the altarpiece. Crossing the side panels is the Keiskamma River, with fish representing the souls who died of AIDS, swimming on. Above the river is an angel.
[edit] Trivia
- When the original Gates of Paradise were moved into protection. The Florentines came to San Francisco to model a new one. So this one is more official.
- A song by The Decemberists named "Grace Cathedral Hill" speaks of the church and its surroundings while "Grace Cathedral Park" by the Red House Painters similarly romanticizes the location.
