What it was over is that my church re-painted its interior durring the winter. The last time the church was painted was in 1968, it badly needed to be done. Over the altar we had a beautiful painting (actually it was wall papered on) of Christ the King sitting on his throne with angels worshiping him. My pastor wanted to go for a Roman Basilica look; because of this, the painting would look out of place (it would have needed to have been restored anyways.) Many people were upset about this, but we had a vote, and the vote said yes to the restoration.
For those who are not familiar with the Roman Basilica look, it is very Byzantine, the walls are adorned with elaborate patterns of lines, squares, and circles, look at these website and you’ll see what I’m talking about:
In this cite, notice how the interior of the dome of the Hagia Sophia is adorned with lines and circles:
travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2793412-action-imgsearch-hagia_sophia_istanbul-i
Notice how St. Mark’s in Venice also has this:
photo.net/italy/venice-san-marco
Take a look at the Sanctuary of St. John Lateran:
di-forgod.com/rome2003/StJohnLateran.htm
Our church sancturary looks very similar to this now; this is what my pastor had in mind and so did the artist.
She was trying to tell me that the artist adorned the wall with pagan symbols. When I told her that it was Byzantine Art because we were going for a Venecian look, she stated that we shouldn’t give New Agers the wrong impression. :banghead:
After she was I was unflinched she basically told me that Satan has taken a hold of my pastor, because of what he did to the Church; that the communist had infiltrated the church (and intern, my church; and because I didn’t agree with her; me.)
Her reasoning for this is because we took down the painting of Christ the King. She said why would anyone want to take down that Glorius picture of Christ being adored by Angels (who wasn’t a communist.) and then replace them with clouds. “Clouds?” I said. (My church is shaped like a cross, the artist painted across the middle of two ceilings thin strip of blue sky and cloud, giving the appearnce of a skyline. Where the two lines meet, there is a dove descending out of a sunburst.) I told her, “I don’t see clouds, but I do see a cross with the Holy Spirit descending from it.” What better way did God recieve glory, then by the cross? In my opinion the cross is the greatest sign of his glory. Not too mention that the center window above the sancturary is of the Glorius Resurrection of Our Lord, and the painted sky line flows down and around it, so your attention is drawn to it. I would say my church is still full of glory.
She ended by saying we have our opinions and ended with a lecture about how the communists have infiltrated the church; and how many times that she fought with “Catholics” who did not believe in physical presence in the Eucharist, the sanctity of life and marriage, etc, etc. And I told her so did I and my pastor (he spoke of these issues many times from the pulpit. I was very offended because basically she was putting me and my pastor in that group and its not true at all.
It’s one thing if you didn’t like the paint job, not everyone likes the Venican look, many did not want to see that painting go. But what she was saying was very unreal and I was personally offended. Was I out of place?
:yup: :clapping:
You think? After going to that website now I feel very uncomfortable. I wrote a letter to my pastor, if she is telling the uneducated at my parish that my church is covered with “New Age-ism” it will be very damaging. She got very mad when I answered each of her objections to the new look of our church. It’s one thing to say you liked how the church looked before better, it’s another to come up with all of these far-out things.