Chapel of Christ the Lord
Diocesan Press Service. March 11, 1963 [VIII-4]
The Chapel of Christ the Lord, on the street level just off the lobby of the new Episcopal Church Center, was filled for the Ash Wednesday 12:10 p.m. Holy Eucharist. During Lent, a special series of addresses will be heard each Wednesday noon.
Monday through Friday, Morning and Evening Prayer and noonday intercessions are conducted by National Council staff. , The services are at 8:45 a. m. and 12:10 and 5 p. m. The Holy Communion is celebrated on Thursday and all Holy Days at 12:10 p. m.
Contemporary in design, the chapel is one of the highlights of the Church's new 12-story office building located one block west of the United Nation's Secretariat. Six stained glass windows abstractly depicting the Resurrection, dominate the east wall of the chapel. The interior walls are of natural teak paneling and buff travertine, with red marble columns. The teak altar rail supported by travertine posts makes a striking contrast with the black serpentine chancel floor. Ten colorful glass mosaic shields representing the National Church and the nine original dioceses line the center aisle of the chapel's mica-flecked greenstone floor.
Facing the altar, above the chapel entrance, is a three-dimensional marble mosaic representing the Tree of Jesse. This is the work of Gabriel Loire of Chartres, France. The free-standing altar is surmounted by a modernized version of the Celtic cross, both of green Italian marble. Four evangelists, with entwining grapevine and branches, are delicately carved on the cross.
Behind the altar, a 10-by-20-foot dossal tapestry designed by Philadelphia artist Allan Porter, and executed by West Germany artisans, depicts four seraphs around a center of light, and forms a background for the large cross. Outside the chapel, in the building's foyer, a huge mosaic map of the world, fashioned from 23,000 colored stones by Nicholas Vergette of Carbondale, Illinois, greets the visitor.