Church Doors Blessed
Episcopal News Service. May 10, 1977 [77152]
Anglican/Vatican Leaders
Rome, Italy -- The Most. Rev. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and Cardinal Jan Willebrands, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity, unveiled and blessed the new bronze doors of the U.S. Episcopal Church of St. Paul's-Within-the-Walls in a recent ceremony here.
The ceremony took place on April 28 following a morning meeting at the Vatican of Archbishop Coggan and Pope Paul VI. The church is located on Rome's Via Nazionale.
The 350 invited guests included officials from the governments of Rome and Italy, clergy and laity from Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches throughout Europe, and various ambassadors. Among them was Richard Gardner, the new U.S. Ambassador to Italy.
The doors, an abstract design by American-born sculptor Dimitri Hadzi, were donated by the Episcopal Church in the U. S., commemorating the meeting at the Vatican in December 1960 of the late Pope John XXIII and the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey F. Fisher. That occasion marked the first meeting between the top leaders of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches since the Reformation.
Hadzi is currently sculptor in residence at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. The 12 by 4-foot bronze doors are the first of abstract design to be hung on a church in Italy.