Stained glass windows are ruining the Church!

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Quite so. No stained glass but numerous icons. My example wasn’t exactly to the point. But I was just trying to show that representation though traditional still survives even in new Church buildings.

CDL
 
mark_a said:
Just kidding. . . .

Anyways, I’ve noticed that many of the newer Catholic Churches are a little lacking in the stained glass department.

So I’m trying to compile a list of the Catholic Churches with the most beautiful stained glass, so that my family can check these out when we are in the vicinity.

Here are a few I know of:

Pine Hurst, NC (can’t recall the name of the church)
Belmont Abbey, NC
Johanna, SC St. Bonafice
Cheraw, SC St. Peters
Greenville, SC St. Mary’s
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Immaculate Conception, Jacksonville, Florida
Here is a link to a photograph of the Staines Glass behind our altar. It really dosen’t do it justice, but I don’t have another. www.immaculateconceptionjax.org/contact.ivnu .The Stained Glass actually goes all the way down both sides of the Church walls, with Stations of the Cross in between. The Stained Glass Windows were made in Munich, Germany by the Mayer Stained Glass Company, somewhere between 1904-1910. Right now we are having fund drives to repair the tiny cracks that have appeared 😦 in our beautiful windows.
 
puzzleannie said:
DD was married at the cathedral in Raleigh NC, I think it is Sacred Heart, made beautiful wedding pictures, and my brother took a series of pictures of the windows which are the frontspiece and back page of her wedding album, stunning.
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Yes, it is Sacred Heart Cathedral, the smallest cathedral in the United States, but with large, beautiful stained glass windows.
 
Not much of a stained glass fan. Could care less. I love beautiful and colorful high altars. 😛 😛 😛
 
I’m a little late to this thread (live in a different time zone and you miss everything), but I grew up in a parish that had to replace its churche with one of the very earliest in the new order style. It remains a fairly successful example of what it is, but for some unknown reason, the architect saw fit to include several rows of colored glass (no figuration, just colored glass) because, apparently, he thought you could not have a church without stained glass.

Very great churches, including the original Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore, arguably the pirmatial church of the United States and frequently cited by architects as the most beautiful American church, would be ruined by stained glass. These churches have georgian/federalist/neoclassical architecture that mus be respected.

There is modern stained glass that works. I hate to cite a protestant example, but the National Cathedral has wonderful stained glass.
 
Find any old German church, and there will be the BEST stained glass. The "Cathedral of the Plains’ in Victoria, Kansas is absolutely gorgeous, old altar and all. Sad part is, many of the other old churches in the area have been wrecked, I mean renovated, in the 70’s. :bigyikes: :banghead: :tsktsk: But a few left in the Hays area are gorgeous.
The Wichita area also has some beautiful ones, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception has beautiful windows, although the altar is gone. 😦 St. Anthony’s has recently been remodeled to it’s glorious old self, altar and all. Also to the west of town the German area of St. Mark’s/Andale/St.Joe has pretty churches.
The Basilica in St. Louis is the most beautiful church I have ever seen in my life though. Makes you think of Rome…astounding! 👍
 
jbuck919 said:
I’m a little late to this thread (live in a different time zone and you miss everything), but I grew up in a parish that had to replace its churche with one of the very earliest in the new order style. It remains a fairly successful example of what it is, but for some unknown reason, the architect saw fit to include several rows of colored glass (no figuration, just colored glass) because, apparently, he thought you could not have a church without stained glass.
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Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago has for the past few decades (since it’s renovation) had to suffer through awful abstract colored glass. It’s darker at the back of the nave and gets progressively lighter in tone as it approaches the sancturay. The idea being that we are more filled with light as we draw close to Christ. But it looks just horrid and, dare I say, cheap for a catedral. Godspeed the day when some donors come forward to replace it with something worthy!
 
Have to plug the beautiful St Mary’s Cathedral here in Sydney - as I often do 😃

The chapel at the front of the Cathedral has 3 sides that are close to being just walls of beautiful old stained glass with all sorts of scenes. Evening Mass there with the sun streaming through is absolutely glorious :love:
 
One of the reasons modern Churches that are built are low on the stained glass is money. Those window panes are pricey! However, what I’ve seen Churches doing is either having the window form ready and temporarily covered over or plain glass in it, waiting for funds to be donated in order to purchase stained glass. That’s what the Antioch Orthodox Church near me did when they expanded their Church (expanded it by at least 50%–and still I’m told the seating gets tight).
 
"One of the reasons modern Churches that are built are low on the stained glass is money. Those window panes are pricey! "The high costs of stained glass explains why most of Pittsburgh’s best examples of the work are in Protestant churches which had industrialist patrons, like the East Liberty Presbyterian Church which was built by the Mellons.
 
jbuck919 said:
Very great churches, including the original Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore, arguably the pirmatial church of the United States and frequently cited by architects as the most beautiful American church, would be ruined by stained glass. These churches have georgian/federalist/neoclassical architecture that mus be respected.
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The Cathedral of the Assumption is, well, English. I, for one would never have recognized it as a Catholic church. The second oldest cathedral in the United States is in New Orleans and reflects French sensibilities - including a lot of stained glass and frescoes.



Depicting the life of St. Louis, King of France. New Orleans was a diocese before Louisiana became a state. But you are correct that stained glass would be inappropriate in that obviously English Catholic cathedral.

The interior of St. Louis Cathedral:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
a_cermak said:
One of the reasons modern Churches that are built are low on the stained glass is money. Those window panes are pricey! However, what I’ve seen Churches doing is either having the window form ready and temporarily covered over or plain glass in it, waiting for funds to be donated in order to purchase stained glass.
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That’s what my parish did. The cornerstone was laid in 1929, yup, right before the Great Depression. The stained glass from Chartres, France, wasn’t ordered until the 1950s when the parishoners could afford it (and of course, when the war was over). I’m glad they put it in then, I hate to think what would have happened if they’d waited 10 more years. We’d probably have random mosaics instead of our Saints’ windows and sacramental depictions.
 
The basilica in Covinton, Ky, has the largest stained glass something in the world. I don’t know if it is largest single window, groupings of, or what have you, but it is impressive.
covcathedral.com/3.htm
 
brotherhrolf said:
The Cathedral of the Assumption is, well, English. I, for one would never have recognized it as a Catholic church. The second oldest cathedral in the United States is in New Orleans and reflects French sensibilities - including a lot of stained glass and frescoes.

http://static.flickr.com/65/192633443_c30a7bd439_m.jpg

Depicting the life of St. Louis, King of France. New Orleans was a diocese before Louisiana became a state. But you are correct that stained glass would be inappropriate in that obviously English Catholic cathedral.

The interior of St. Louis Cathedral:

http://www.world-guides.com/images/new_orleans/new_orleans_st_louis_cath.jpg
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I do not find the federal style of architecture or its British analogues to be offensive. There are churches of that style that were designed by Chrrisopher Wren. In Maryland where I lived for many years, there are large numbers of neoclassical design churches, including Christ the King in Silver Spring to name only one.

On the other hand, it is also a mistake to assume that European cathedrals of the Romanesque or Gothic order alll have stained glass. Most of them, including extremely famous ones such as Koeln (Colongne), have blank windows because no one ever got around to donating the stained glass. Real stained glass is a very, very big deal.

And to finish off, the greatest church in the world, St. Peter’s has no stained glass at all. It has, in fact, no windows. It was designed that way. Guys by the name of Bramante, Michelangelo, and Borromini approred.
 
mark_a said:
One of our local priests commented about the “simple” structures we are building. He said it is a matter of finances.
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Finances, my foot! This was built by German immigrants in a tiny little town at the turn of the last century, and they didn’t have a lot of money (most of what looks like marble is actually cleverly painted wood). The problem is not finances; the problem is that the enemies of excellence have gained the upper hand.

By the way, for stained glass windows, I recommend the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Boise, Idaho. But make it quick, because restorations are scheduled to begin next year.
 
I do not wish to have appeared to post against stained glass, which I love as much as anyone in the world. And the US has multiple magnificent churches on every scale with magnificent stained glass. US church architecture is in general an unsung story, with many masterpieces widely distributed in a geographic sense.

Nobody has come back to me about this, but I want to make it clear that I was limiting myself to churches where stained glass would be inappropriate, and they are neither un-Roman or exotic.

When I was a teen, the Jesuit seminary of the Maryland province, which was located in an extremely obscure town called Woodstock (not to be confused with the famous place in New York, near where I grew up) closed. They had great stained glass which they let go to a new parish named in honor of St. Elizabeth Seton. Years later, as a teacher, I accompanied some students on a retreat to that parish. It was everything it was cracked up to be. I can complain about church music as a professional and expert inthe area, but I cannot complain about US church architecture. I’ve been to the greatest European churches, and the US has nothing to be ashamed of–nothing.
 
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