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by Kevin Eckstrom

ONE HISTORIC BUILDING. TWO TRANSFORMATIVE GIFTS. COUNTLESS POSSIBILITIES.

photos cathedral archives

5summer 2019

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When Bishop Henry Yates Satterlee first imagined what would become Washington National Cathedral, he not only envisioned a great Gothic cathedral to serve the nation but also a “School of the Prophets” to serve the wider church.

Satterlee, the first Episcopal bishop of Washington, wanted a place where “devout and intellectual students may ponder the questions of the day side by side with the facts of the Gospel; where skilled theologians and interpreters of the Queen of Science shall be competent to translate the doctrinal truths of theology into the common language of life.”

Even though Satterlee never lived to see it, the College of Preachers opened in 1929, and over the next eight decades served as a destination for clergy, theologians and laity from across the country.

The Great Recession of 2008 forced the closure of the Cathedral College, and the rambling building that housed it and nurtured the imagination of generations of visitors lay dormant.

Until now.

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Thanks to two transformative gifts totalling more than $22 million, work began this spring to renovate and restore the former College of Preachers building as The Virginia Mae Center, scheduled to open in late 2020.

At the same time, the Cathedral is launching a new programming arm, The Cathedral College of Faith and Culture, which will serve as the focal point of the Cathedral’s public programming, leadership development and spiritual formation.

Dean Randy Hollerith explained that most people know “the College” as the 1929 Gothic building that was its home for decades, but the revamped plan envisions the Cathedral College of Faith and Culture as a much larger organizational engine for much of the Cathedral’s public programming.

From conferences and forums to retreats and pilgrimages, the Cathedral College of Faith and Culture will help shape and augment both existing and new ventures from the Cathedral. While some of that College programming will be housed in the newly named Virginia Mae Center, other parts may be held in the Cathedral or elsewhere on the Cathedral Close.

“The College of Faith and Culture is the lynchpin for so much of what we hope to do at the Cathedral over the next five to 10 years,” Dean Hollerith said. “A renewed College will position the Cathedral for a new century of ministry and witness, both here in Washington and across the country.”

The reimagined Virginia Mae Center dovetails with the release of the Cathedral’s 2019–2023 Strategic Plan, which focuses the Cathedral’s activities in four main priorities: Welcoming, Deepening, Convening and Serving. Once fully operational in late 2020, the revitalized Virginia Mae Center will offer a structure and a physical space to dig deeper into core programs.

“The College is not just the building we all know and love,” Dean Hollerith said. “Rather, it is the framework for much of our mission and ministry. And the newly renovated Virginia Mae Center will serve as ground zero for work that we want to be innovative, transformative and relationship-building.”

The Cathedral College of Faith and Culture will house three primary institutes:

• The Institute for Music, Liturgy & the Arts, which will offer programs and create national and international networks that foster excellence and innovation in liturgy, preaching and choral and organ music.

• The Institute for Ethics & Public Engagement will aim to strengthen the moral discourse of our community and the nation by shining the light of the Gospel on the important issues of our day, with a primary focus on racial justice and reconciliation, social justice, veterans’ issues and interfaith engagement.

• The Institute for Spirituality & Leadership will harken back to the original mission of Bishop Satterlee’s College of Preachers. Through its courses of spiritual retreats, residencies, and pilgrimages, this institute will contribute to the spiritual and theological formation of lay and clergy leaders and offer opportunities for renewal, mentoring and reflection.

The College of Faith and Culture aims to capitalize on the Cathedral’s unique convening power to address issues of national and spiritual significance through the moral lens of the Gospel, and to act as a sort of innovation lab that helps generate life-giving possibilities for the church and the nation.

The contents placed within the cornerstone of the Cathedral College of Preachers is a time capsule of life at the Cathedral and the nation in 1928: • a bible • book of common prayer and hymnal• revised prayer book, 1925 • constitution and canons of the protestant episcopal church • living church annual for 1928 • report of the world conference on faith and order, lausanne, 1927 • current numbers of representative church papers • journal of the diocese of washington, 1927 • constitution and bylaws of washington cathedral • guidebook to washington cathedral • photograph showing washington cathedral in course of construction, 1928 • a washington cathedral pilgrim’s token • copy of letter of anonymous donor to the bishop providing for the college of preachers • copies of programs of recents conferences of preachers’ college • copies of recent numbers of the cathedral age • article of bishop rhinelander, warden of college of preachers, in regard to its purpose and work • program for laying of cornerstone of college of preachers • copy of bishop freeman’s address at the laying of the cornerstone • copy of constitution of the united states • map of the city of washington• a silver dollar, 1928 • copies of washington daily newspapers of may 16 & 17, 1928

source cathedral archives

STANDING ON HOLY GROUND

In its original form, the College of Preachers was both a destination and a retreat for visiting clergy. Its central goal was improving the art of preaching, offering lessons on everything from “voice culture” to deep-dive studies on Scripture, theology and “the wonder and power of the Christian Gospel itself,” according to a 1945 account.

“The discussions in classroom and Common Room, however, are always refreshingly concrete,” it says. “Men share pastoral experience, sermon illustration and tokens of God’s grace in human souls. And in the sermon criticisms, no detail of technique is too insignificant for comment.”

The College was built and endowed with a $1.45 million gift from carpet manufacturer Alexander Smith Cochran, who said he wished to “furnish an institution in which the spiritual values of Christian ministry may have their largest expression.” The semi-independent College of Preachers merged with the Cathedral as the Cathedral College in 2004.

The College experience was transformative for a young priest named Randy Hollerith, who visited the College numerous times, experiences that deepened a lifelong connection with the Cathedral.

“It was very clear that you were standing on holy ground when you visited the College,” the dean said. “Staying at the College was so different than any other retreat center or airport hotel. The grounds, the chapels, the daily worship—all of it connected the participants to the Cathedral, and those connections last a lifetime.”

The mission of the College of Preachers morphed over time, from a rigorous schedule of sermon critiques to a menu of programs that

left crowds gather at the laying of the cornerstone for the college of preachers on may 17, 1928. the building was opened in 1929. photo cathedral archives left virginia cretella mars, whose family gave more than $17 million to renovate the college building, took the first swing with a sledgehammer and renovations got underway. right james w. shepherd, director of facilities and preservation, and patrick smith, preservation manager, inspect construction inside the old college of preachers. photos d. thomas

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sought to connect clergy and lay leaders with real-life issues, from death and dying to the best ways to reach young families.

What was originally a program for male Episcopal priests eventually welcomed women, lay leaders and clergy from other traditions.

“I can’t stress how valuable and life-changing those hours spent in the College were for me as a young priest,” Hollerith said. “I learned from some of the greatest minds in the church, and we really lost something when we lost the College.”

BUILT FOR THE AGES

Virginia Cretella Mars can relate. She remembers hours spent in the College for Cathedral programs, and fell in love with the quirky charm of the College building. Her fondness for the College experience—and her confidence in Dean Hollerith’s stewardship of the Cathedral—moved her and her daughters to make a $17 million gift to renovate and restore the College building.

“I just love this building,” she said. “There’s so much that happened here, and so much potential for this special space to be a vital part of the Cathedral going forward. The dean’s leadership is inspiring, and I eagerly signed on to his vision.”

When completed in late 2020 in time for Mars’ 90th birthday, the 27,000 square feet of the newly renovated Virginia Mae Center—named in honor of its principal benefactor—will come alive once again with activity and energy. The facility (with a goal of LEED Silver qualification) will be wheelchair accessible and have capacity to house an estimated 30–40 people in renovated guest rooms with ensuite bathrooms, for both short-term stays and longer-term academic residencies.

Cathedral leaders are actively planning to raise funds to endow both the renovated building, and the wider programming of the College of Faith and Culture, for sustainable and responsible growth. Andrew C. Florance, the current chair of the Cathedral

Tucked away in the north transept of the Cathedral lies a memorial to Bishop James Freeman (1866–1943), third bishop of Washington (1923–1943). At his feet lies an image of the College of Preachers, which he oversaw after construction began in 1928.

At the laying of the College cornerstone on May 17, 1928, Freeman described his vision for the College, following the lead of Bishop Henry Yates Satterlee, who he said dreamed of a “school of the prophets, to which men might come who were seeking to put a fresh accent upon their preaching office.”

“What this college is designed to do renders it different from any institution hitherto undertaken. I am credibly informed that the service it is designed to render makes it unique, and gives it a place of peculiar distinction in the realm of educational service.

“Very properly it is immediately related to the great Cathedral, and constitutes in itself one of its more vital adjuncts.

“It has been well said that it is of little worth that we multiply great Gothic buildings unless we are prepared to furnish them with trained men who shall be capable of rendering them vocal with the eternal truths of the Gospel.

“It is our hope and expectation when once this College is builded and men of inspirational power are here to train those who are to be sent forth as evangelists, that a new day will dawn for our Church, and its hallowed offices received freshened impulse and deepened devotion.”

Chapter, said the Cathedral’s governance wants to be careful to ensure that the former College building never again is forced to close its doors.

Florance and his wife, Heather, donated $5 million toward construction and renovation to bring the building back to life. He said the Cathedral’s financial success in recent years, and the positive momentum under Dean Hollerith, made him see his gift as a long-term investment.

“This Cathedral is going to be here for another 500 or a thousand years, and this iconic building that once housed the College of Preachers is a central piece of our future success,” he said. “The Cathedral itself is solid and built for the ages, and our opportunity now is to fill both the this building and the Cathedral with programming that extends its ministry to the world.”

FOSTERING OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANSFORMATION

When the Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope wanders through the future Virginia Mae Center in a hard hat, she can envision a group of interfaith leaders meeting in one room, budding choristers studying during a music summer camp in another or an intensive discussion on civic engagement in the wood-paneled library.

Upstairs, a scholar-in-residence leads a small group through a talk on the interplay of liturgy and the visual arts, while in the refectory a group of veterans meet for a weekly lunch and Bible study. Out in the enclosed courtyard garden, a visiting theologian answers questions on Facebook during a virtual town hall with promising young clergy.

It’s the thing she hears from friends of the Cathedral as she travels around the country: the Cathedral’s singular ability to bring people together across ideology, partisanship or even religious identity. And it is central to the mission of the new College of Faith and Culture.

“When people put down their Twitter or their cable news and actually engage with each other, real change can happen,” said

Cope, the Cathedral’s provost. “Bringing people together and giving them a chance to talk, to listen and to leave transformed: that’s what the College is all about.”

At its core, the revamped Virginia Mae Center will allow the Cathedral to convene gatherings large and small, whether young clergy learning from each other, or veterans seeking to minister to their comrades dealing with moral injuries from the battlefield, or a weeknight Bible study series that offers renewal and refreshment for the spiritually curious.

Dean Hollerith and other Cathedral leaders are actively seeking partnerships with other institutions, acknowledging that the Cathedral seeks to be a hub that brings together expertise and resources from around the country to address the issues facing the 21st century church and a polarized society.

Back in the day, the College functioned as a kind of lending library, distributing thousands of books in the mail to clergy across the country. In this new century, the College will maintain and expand that national reach through a focus on digital communication, long-distance learning, online coursework and video technology.

“The College was a central hub of learning and listening for generations of people both inside and outside of the church, and we can do that again in modern, cutting-edge ways,” Dean Hollerith said. “The Cathedral—through the College of Faith and Culture—has so much to offer the church and the country. And I’m so grateful that God has blessed us with this amazing opportunity.”

opposite the refectory inside the old college of preachers hosted countless dinners and teas for cathedral meetings and events. photo cathedral archives above left to right: margaret richardson, andrew c. florance, james w. shepherd, virginia cretella mars, dean randy hollerith, provost jan cope and patrick smith each took a swing as renovations got underway in the old college of preachers building. photo d. thomastop library of congress, prints & photographs division, photograph

by harris & ewing, lc-dig-hec-19860 bottom book carving on bishop freeman memorial showing cathedrall and cathedral college buildings. photos d. thomas