Washington National Cathedral announces $115 million in donations

Washington National Cathedral celebrated its 115th birthday Sunday by announcing that it would raise $115 million to finish repairing the damage caused by an earthquake 11 years ago and lay a strong financial foundation for its future.

Cathedral officials said the ongoing private funding campaign will be used to boost the cathedral’s growing digital ministry, restore the 84-year-old organ, and pay for the renovation of the former Preachers College, a Gothic-style stone hall adjacent to the cathedral. It has been closed since the 2008 recession. The building, renamed the Virginia Mae Center in honor of a major donor, will host leadership seminars, educational programs focused on social and racial justice, and retreats for artists and musicians.

It will take years to repair the damage caused to the National Cathedral by the earthquake

Reverend Randolph “Randy” Marshall Hollerith, dean of the cathedral, said the five-year effort had reached its initial goal after a low-profile campaign to identify committed donors began three years ago. The overall goal is to raise $150 million.

Cathedral officials hope to raise the remaining amount over the next two years and direct some of that money toward addressing the most severe earthquake-related damage yet: the cathedral’s central tower, whose cracked tops still wear a crown of heavy steel beams to tie and lock it. in the place. Cathedral officials said the job alone is expected to take at least another eight years.

Hollerith said that in addition to capital repairs, the funding will be used to support the cathedral’s ongoing operations, which can cost up to $50,000 a day.

“What we always think is that if we’re doing the work we’re supposed to do, there will be support and resources there,” said Hollerith, who arrived in 2016 with a reputation as a smart fundraiser. He said the cathedral operates on an annual budget of $25 million and employs 86 people full-time.

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Hollerith acknowledged that the pace of repairs had been slow since the August 2011 earthquake, which caused $38 million in damage. But he said the pace was set by funding, as well as the delicate and complex nature of work on one of the tallest buildings in the area. Much of the stone restoration has been done by hand.

Washington National Cathedral hopes to raise $150 million to repair structural and organ damage caused by the 2011 earthquake. (Video: Frederic Kunkel, Amber Ferguson/Washington Post)

Hollerith said the cathedral, which has completed about $24 million in earthquake-related repairs to date, has avoided withdrawing capital funding from its continuing operations.

“It was important that we not take money from the mission of this place in order to repair the peaks at the top of this place. This work is important, but it should not detract from what we are here for,” Hollerith said.

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Washington National Cathedral’s latest fundraising drive also highlights its dual mission as an episcopal house of worship and a memorial in the nation’s capital. Because of its location, Hollerith said, the cathedral strives to balance a religious ministry dedicated to dealing with the important issues of the day and providing a welcoming spiritual home for people of all political spectrum. It serves as a prominent venue for festive occasions that blend religious celebration with affairs of state, such as the funerals of presidents or last week’s memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II. Before the pandemic, the cathedral was attracting about 250,000 tourists a year. Worshipers number over 1,500, while on Sundays they number up to 10,000 from afar.

“First of all, we are a church. We are an Episcopal Church committed to the reconciliation of Jesus Christ,” Hollerith said. “However, we have also become a memorial in the sense that we are one of the most beautiful and magnificent buildings in Washington, D.C., and so we live and stand on the first lot, that we Church: Worship, music, prayer is fundamental to who we are. Being a monument is part of our leadership — caring for this beautiful place.”

The idea of ​​Washington having a gigantic church worthy of the nation’s capital dates back to the era of George Washington and its early days. But it became the life mission of Washington’s first Episcopalian, the Right Reverend Henry Yates Sutterley, at the end of the nineteenth century. Satterley envisioned a structure that would “inspire shared religious and patriotic sentiments,” according to a June 1907 story in the Washington Post, when the church’s design was revealed.

Plans called for a cathedral – officially called the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul – designed in the Gothic style in the 14th century and modeled after those in Europe. About 10,000 people, including President Theodore Roosevelt, attended the groundbreaking ceremony in September. At the time, church officials estimated its cost at $5 million or more.

On last week’s tour, Hollerith spun die-hard workers to finalize the Virginia May Center’s renovations, recalling how he became enamored of the building’s “Harry Potter” blend of Gothic and Tudor architectural styles when a young priest had been teaching there for nearly 30 years.

“So when I came in as dean and learned that the college had closed, it was very special for me personally — not just as dean, but personally — to see if we could reopen,” Hollerith said.

Cathedral officials said a $17 million gift from Virginia C. Mars and her four daughters — a family with connections to the Martian candy fortune — was the catalyst for the 1929 building, which will house the cathedral’s new College of Faith and Culture. .

Renovations to the four-story building—five, if one were his tower—included the restoration of a painted ceiling in the entrance; Addition of an improved lift; installation of new glazing in the arcade overlooking the Garth or a small courtyard; updating her kitchen expanding conference spaces and equipping them with video conferencing technology; Create special places for visiting artists or composers.

Next in line for reform is the long-suffering tube church member. It was installed in 1938 by Ernest M.

Thomas Sheehan, cathedral organist and associate director of music, ran his fingers through the keys Thursday to explain why the instrument needed to work: Not all of its horns, and many of the keys chime dead notes.

Of the 10,650 organ tubes, made of soft lead and varying in size from pencils to downspout, many are lost, drooping, or bent over time. Others were stopped on purpose with cotton balls or something else handed over in an emergency after the air valves had stopped opening. The instrument, along with the computer that helps power it, has become so difficult that Sheehan avoids certain tunes and composers altogether.

He said, “I’ve never wanted to play anything that won’t come out the way I want it to, so what I do in the end is limit what I play.”

Repairing the member, he said, would mean taking the thing apart and shipping it to Connecticut for repair.

Then there is the structure itself, with its towering stone walls, flying buttresses, and its strange inhabitants of gargoyles and humans watching over the city from above.

Joe Alonso, chief stoner at Washington National Cathedral, said the earthquake’s violent energy traveled from the depths of the earth to the top of the cathedral, picking up delicate stone peaks like whips. Some rotated or cracked, causing bits of stone, including an angel, to fall to the ceiling below.

Repairing the damage is difficult, Alonso said, especially at 300 feet in the air. But he is already thinking of the day, years from now, when the tower will be finished and the Angel can be put back in place.

“I can see that this is the last iconic piece: the fallen angel,” Alonso said.

But, he said, the money must be there first. That’s why the cathedral’s staff celebrated its 115th birthday by essentially asking for a gift – and expressing their confidence that their wishes would be met.

“Although we are essentially a Christian Church and an Episcopal Church, great cathedrals like this have this wonderful ability to be places of encounter with the sacred whether you are Christian or Jew—whatever, agnostic, student you are,” Hollerith said. A space for those encounters, and it’s very important to us, that we reflect the nation in that way.”

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