Church Number 12: Church of the Ascension
In 1857, when the city of Chicago was a mere twenty years old, part of the congregation at St. James Cathedral (an Episcopal church I have already visited that you can read about HERE) requested and was granted permission to start a new mission. They initially met at a variety of places before building a wooden structure in 1858.
At this point, the Episcopalian church’s history is riddled with controversy, most of which gets very in the weeds and is honestly beyond my understanding. I’ll do my best to summarize, and If I get anything wrong, please let me know!
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In the 1870s, the Episcopal Church was pulled in two directions. One side was considered Evangelical and was interested in creating closer ties to Protestant churches while distancing itself from Catholicism and its rituals (sometimes called Low Churchmen). This was the position of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago.
The other side originated with the Oxford Movement in the UK and the Church of England, and it advocated for turning back to Catholic doctrine and the ritual of the Mass. In the United States, this was called the Anglo-Catholic movement (sometimes called High Churchmen).
In 1869, the Church of Ascension became part of the Anglo-Catholic movement and joined the Anglican Communion. As a result, it should come as no surprise that heated disagreements continually arose between the leaders of the Church of the Ascension and the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, and there were many publicized conflicts with the Bishop of Chicago.
Rev. Canon Charles Palmer Dorset of the Church of the Ascension at that time served the church for five years, and when he left, it had become “the most advanced Anglo-Catholic parish in the diocese of Illinois.”
Next came 1871. I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next!
The Chicago Fire. Parishioners rushed to the church to save as much as they could from the impending fire. They were able to roll out the stone baptismal font and remove the silver communion service. Everything else was lost, including most of the homes and businesses of the members of the congregation.
Episcopal churches back east came to the rescue and raised $30,000 to help the three Chicago churches rebuild. The Church of the Ascension was the only of the three to be Anglo-Catholic, something the bishop strongly opposed. The bishop controlled the fund, and as a result, he allocated only $3,000 to Church of the Ascension despite it suffering the worst damage of the three. St. James and St. Ansgarius, the other two churches in the diocese impacted, were given $27,000.
In addition, the church also found it had a difficult time raising money locally to rebuild. They were finally able to build a chapel that was completed in 1874, but this building burned down in 1886. Once again, parishioners were able to save the communion chalice and paten as well as the baptismal font, the same things that were saved during the 1871 fire.
The church was once again rebuilt, completed in 1887, and it remains the church where the congregation continues to meet today.
Starting early on in the church’s history, the Church of the Ascension became well known for the beauty and excellence of its music. As early as 1905, the choirmaster and some of the choir members, which consisted of thirty-one boys and nine men, were actually paid for their services. Their reputation for exemplary music continued for the next hundred years.
But then in 2014, Father David Cobb, who the congregation considered to be a “revisionist” seeking to make major changes in the church, was appointed the church’s rector. One of the first things he did was to fire the leading musicians and the senior staff as well as to slash the choir’s budget. The congregation immediately revolted, and he was removed within 18 months. Things were so bad that one bishop said the situation was “the worst I’ve ever seen.” The congregation demanded the ability to choose their own church leaders and warned revisionist leaders to not interfere.
To show how contentious the situation had been, an article published in an Orthodox Anglican publication from 2016 included the following:
Slowly but surely, once proud Anglo-Catholic parishes in the Episcopal Church are being ripped apart by revisionist Episcopal bishops and turned into Affirming Catholic parishes with women priests adorning high altars and gay men mincing down aisles in clouds of incense, intoning liturgies they no longer believe in, praying to a pansexual god of their own devising.
The Church of the Ascension, it seems, might just be another victim.
This leads to a necessary discussion of controversy in the Anglican Communion, of which the Church of the Ascension is a part, over the past decade.
Much of the controversy began with the 2013 appointment of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the Anglican Communion’s founding in 1867, the Archbishop has served as its spiritual leader, today amounting to 80 million members.
Welby’s appointment was unusual to begin with. He was married with six children, and he was an oil executive for over a decade before deciding to turn his life over to God. But he was chosen for the position specifically for his business and organizational sense.
This is an interesting article that critically analyzes Welby’s impact on the church and its centralization and bureaucratization. In the article, the author writes that Welby’s reaction to COVID did not help his position according to many. As a bureaucrat who thrives on rules, imposing COVID rules came easy, which led to abandoning the church’s members and clergy. “This feels like what a CEO archbishop would do,” he writes.
The church has been rocked by two serious controversies. The first was the physical and sexual abuse of young boys at religious summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s at the hands of John Smyth, who was the chair of the trust running the camps and who was a friend and mentor of Justin Welby. In short, the abuses were swept under the rug and Smyth was moved from place to place, where the abuse continued, rather than dealt with until he passed away in 2018, unpunished.
Welby has since made public apologies for not handling the abuses.
The other controversy which has had a direct impact on the Church of the Ascension is that Welby has advocated for and approved women priests and deacons.
In January 2019, the Church of the Ascension leaders alerted the congregation that they would begin to include women priests and deacons. Then in September of 2022, the first woman (and first black) was consecrated as the Bishop of Chicago, a huge move for women in the church but difficult to swallow for those who did not subscribe to the revisionist wing of the church.
Then to add to the controversy, in June of 2023, the church decided to allow a blessing for same sex marriages. This led to Anglican churches around the world to state that they no longer recognize Welby as the head of the church.
One other interesting piece of trivia about Welby is something that was in the news regarding the royal family. It was revealed that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were officially married in a private ceremony three days before the public wedding, something highly irregular under English law. And it was Welby who presided over the secret ceremony.
But I think that is enough about all of the controversies in this denomination! As I wrote in the beginning, let me know if I have gotten something wrong!
PHOTO
As for the church itself, this sanctuary is beautiful! (Do I say that every week??) I am literally taken aback by the beauty inside, especially considering the seeming insignificance of the building on the outside. The detail is amazing and awe-inspiring.
When I first entered the church, an older man enthusiastically greeted me and handed me a program, but he didn’t push himself on me, thank goodness.
Soon after I arrived, the organ started and two altar attendants, who were both grown men, came out to light all of the candles on the altar. The organ music was filled with doom and destruction. If this music played during a movie, it would be obviously foreshadowing that something terrible is about to happen.
At this point, there were only about 20 people seated in the huge sanctuary. By the end of the service, there were only 30 or 35. Everyone was spread out, and most were alone (like me!). There were a few young couples; I only saw two children, one an infant. It surprised me to see that there were many more men of all ages attending than women, most of them alone.
In the church program, the last page included a prayer list, and it seemed like there were more people on the prayer list than were in the church! I wonder why. So many of these churches have what seem to be fairly small congregations. It makes me wonder how in the world they can afford to keep their doors open. It also made me wonder whether the numbers were larger pre-COVID lockdowns and if shutting down churches negatively impacted attendance, something that has had long term consequences.
But since COVID lockdowns, all of these churches, including this one, now stream live on Zoom. How many people are actually watching at home on Zoom each week?
This reminded me of my dad, who when we moved from Chicago to St. Louis shopped around for months to find our family a church to attend. Once he made a decision and took the family there, he never set foot in that church again. On the other hand, my mom, my sister, and I attended church every Sunday. And no doubt, my mom would have LOVED it if he would have come to church with us.
Instead, he watched church services on TV. I can only assume he was watching some evangelical preacher. Who else was on Sunday TV in the 1970s? I wonder why he did that. What did he get out of that? I don’t remember ever having a conversation about that with him. I don’t even remember anyone commenting on it. He died a number of years ago, so that will remain an unanswered question.
The service at Church of the Ascension began when nine people entered from the right side front door and walked up to the altar. (The group only included one woman.)
The priest was at the back of the group, and one man walked on each side of him. Those two men each held up one side of the priest’s cape and followed him around. I had never seen this before. Even when the priest came out into the aisle to splash holy water on the congregation, the two men followed him, holding up the sides of his cape.
They all walked through a beautiful rood screen to get up on the altar (rood means cross). The rood screen is a physical and symbolic barrier that separates the chancel, the domain of the clergy, from the nave, where the worshippers and the lay people sit. In churches without a rood screen, typically a set of steps and/or an altar rail delineates that barrier between the sacred and the secular. On the top of the rood screen is a crucifix in the middle, with Mary and John the Evangelist on each side.
I wasn’t familiar with the rood screen and despite how many churches I’ve been to in Europe, I don’t remember ever seeing this before. But after I did a bit of research, I can understand why. It was very common in European Medieval churches, in particular in Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches. These screens also included lofts above them that were strong enough for a choir or for actors in a mystery play.
In fact, when King Henry VIII left the Catholic church and formed the Anglican church, it was required that churches removed the cross and the lofts. The screen could stay, but most were taken down. And by 1800, few such screens remained. Some Orthodox churches continue to install rood screens, and I suppose it isn’t surprising that an Episcopal church interested in a return to traditional Catholic roots would also have a rood screen.
Once the service started, men up in the back balcony began chanting, clearly a sign of this church’s more traditional leanings. This went on for a while, and sometimes the congregation chanted as well. During the chants, there was a long ritual with the priest walking around bowing and swinging the thurible, the metal container at the end of chains containing burning incense.
Then there were two readings from the BIble. The first was read by someone from the congregation: Acts 6:1-9, 7:2, 51-60.
In summary, this reading introduces us to Stephen, one of seven men chosen to spread the word of God despite facing fierce opposition to his message.
In fact, even when he was being stoned, “Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Next, the congregation recited Psalm 23 together, which was followed by the second reader who was one of the men who held the priest’s cape. He chanted the reading: I Peter 2: 19-25. In summary, the passage says suffering while doing good is commendable before God. One should not retaliate or make threats.
The main message of the day’s readings was about the importance of following the truth of the scriptures.
This was followed by more chanting by the men up in the loft in the back of the church. And more incense up and down the center aisle. And then more chanting.
Don’t get me wrong. Even though my description sounds like I may have grown tired of the chanting, I actually love the chanting and the atmosphere it creates.
When it came time for the sermon, the two men removed the priest’s cape, and a woman led him to the pulpit, turned on the light, and laid out his sermon for him.
The priest began by saying, “The possibility of change, or transition [interesting word choice], makes me anxious.” He said it makes most people anxious. But, he noted, we are in a time of change.
He outlined two current transitions:
A new archbishop
The culture - Today, subjectivity passes for truth; there are many truths and alternative facts. Christians say they know the truth through divine revelation. But people today don’t find meaning in religious life and in fact have skepticism when it comes to organized religion.
He then reminded the congregation that the church has a particular point of view and practice. And we want to remain in continuity with that. So we need to have that in a new leader.
Shepherd leadership (having a leader who walks side by side with his congregation) is necessary, he added, and its purpose is to draw people closer to God. The only thing that matters is the love of God and the spiritual growth of the people in the congregation.
He then read a quote from a book (not sure where this came from): The aim of ministry is to provide the soul with wings to make its way to God. To make Christ dwell in the heart of the spirit.
It was obvious that he was implicitly addressing the divide so often in churches today.
Then the two men returned to put his cape back on.
Following the sermon, the congregation chanted the Nicene Creed, and it appeared that many people around me knew it by heart.
The preparation for communion took forever. More than I have ever seen, filled with chanting, prayers, responses. During most of it, the priest stayed seated and nodded his head. Eventually, he got up, and the two men mentioned previously took off his cape and replaced it with a new one. Then they held up the sides of the new one as the three men scooted back and forth along the table at the altar.
Then more incense and bowing.
When it came time for Our Father, the congregation chanted it rather than simply reciting it.
To prepare for communion, the opening in the rood screen was closed and locked. The congregation knelt at the rail for communion.
At the end, when the priest walked down the center aisle, everyone in the congregation turned to face him and bowed. The service was certainly long - an hour and a half!
This was followed by the organ, once again playing a dark, dramatic song. It certainly did not feel like we were uplifted. Instead it felt like fire and brimstone. Here is a recording of it, if you want to listen to Tocata in d minor by Charles Villiers Stanford. Although the church was awe-inspiring, the chanting was haunting, and the service harkened back to a long history, the final music was a disappointing way to end the experience.
Next week: the famous Unity Temple, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright!