Dedication of Stained Glass Window
Bishop John Bayton AM
Reflected and Refracted
Light
I have
sometimes felt inclined to write to that dynamic comic duo who
present themselves on television SBS as “The
Mythbusters” with
this request; “It has been said that glass was first
discovered by
a bunch of Phoenecians who having sat around their bonfire one night
on a beach of the Eastern Mediterranean, near the ancient city of
Tyre found to their delight and amazement that the intensity of the
heat of their fire had melted the beach sand and turned it into
glass.
Having
myself sat around many beach fires in many parts of the world, and
having searched diligently for primitive glass, I am of the opinion
that this is a myth that could easily be ‘busted’.
What do you
think Mythbusters?”
There
is nowhere in the Old Testament any account of the Almighty having
actually made glass himself, nor is there any reference at all to
glass in the Hebrew Scriptures so whilst all inventions are of Divine
inspiration, I believe glass is not of divine origin. It is a human
invention.
The
Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Phoenecians, the ancient
Indians, Cretans and Chinese had glass ware – tumblers and
drinking vessels. And glass ornamental jewels, bracelets, necklaces
and so on – faience – colored and painted glass in
abundance. In the 1611 version of the Bible in his first letter to the
Corinthians in we read, “But now we see through a glass
darkly”. The ‘glass’ St Paul refers to is
a hand-held mirror which, in
the first century would have been made out of polished bronze and in
his allusion would have been darkened by the soot of candles. The
same ‘glass’ we read of in his second letter?
Ditto. And ditto
in St James epistle. In his Apocalypse St John refers to glass, when
more accurately he is writing of ‘crystal’. He
speaks of ‘… a
sea of glass…” when he refers to sin, which
metaphorically is a
contradiction – the sea dynamic, constantly moving, and
crystal,
static, inert.
This is
what sin is, a contradiction.
I have
in my possession a small pane of glass from the sixth century
Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai given to me by the
Archbishop of Sinai. I searched diligently for it to show you today
but remembered that I put it in a safe deposit in the Bank.
There
is of course evidence of glass having been formed by the intense heat
of volcanic action and by furnaces devised by humans around about
the mid 13th
century BC in what is known as the ‘Bronze
Age’ where copper and tin were fused together Glass is the
product
of a lengthy process in which quartz sand, potash or sodium (salt)
iron, manganese, copper and/or other in-ground metallic substances
called terrestrial elements are converted by fire into the new
substance - glass.’
It was
the early fathers of the Eastern Church who first speak of the
splendour of glass which by the fourth century AD was had in small,
very expensive panes. The Roman historian Prudentius, during the
time of the Emperor Constantine wrote: “In the round arches
the
windows in the basilica shone glass in colors without number,
resplendent like a field in Spring.”
By the
Middle Ages theologians looked upon church buildings as images or
icons of the Heavenly Jerusalem as St John described it in his
Revelation chapter 21 v 9 –21.
Emperor
Justinian’s greatest work of art, the basilica of Hagia
Sophia
(Holy Wisdom) in present day Istanbul was designed so that clear
glass windows reflected light onto the dome which was seen as the
vault of heaven. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux who lived 1090 to
1153 gave the church its earliest and most profound theology of that
which we are about to Dedicate today; “As the glorious sun
penetrates the glass without breaking it….so the Word of
God, the
light of the Father, passes through the Body of the virgin, and then
leaves it without undergoing any change”.
So the
art of stained glass came to be regarded as the most Christian of all
the arts.
The
history of stained glass is an exciting subject and the art itself
has differed very little in the past thousand years. It is a most
exacting art and I am sure we are all delighted to have with us today
at this Service of Dedication Mr Glenn Mack of Glenn Mack Studios,
Daylesford who is the fashioner of what you will soon regard as a
most beautiful work of art.
A
few years ago, in my capacity as representing the Anglican Church in
Jerusalem (during the absence of the Bishop of Jerusalem from his
See) I had the privilege and pleasure of paying official fraternal
Easter calls to the various Patriarchs of the Churches in the Holy
City – Latin, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Melkite and
Romanian. The Armenian patriarch invited me into his throne room
and we sat down to drink coffee and liqueur. His Beatitude said to
me, “Your Grace, In what ways do you think European gothic
architecture was influenced by the architecture of the East?”
I
was a bit taken aback (as you might well imagine) but I replied,
“Your Beatitude, my friend Professor Jean Bony of the
University of
California Berkley, who is the world’s authority on Gothic
architecture in his definitive book on the subject assure us all that
Gothic Architecture, taken back by the 11th
and 12th
century Crusaders had its origins in Armenia.”
It
was the Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Saint Denis which he had
designed himself, who entering his cathedral officially for the first
time in 1144 , wrote in his journal the following; “It seems
to me
that the jewels in the colored glass have the capacity to transform
[that is, transfigure(my translation +j)] that
which is
material into that which is immaterial…… I see
myself dwelling as
it were in some strange region of the universe which neither exists
entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of
heaven; and that by the Grace of God I can be transported from this
inferior to that higher world” vide Rose Windows
by
Painton Cowen p.7 pub Thames and Hudson, London 1984.
The
crafting of this beautiful window has been the work of many months of
design, of re-design, of choosing the very finest glass, preparing
full-size cartoons, careful measurement, of painting on the glass
and staining it and firing it in most cases several times at least,
of cutting and moulding and the final firing in the kiln so that the
colors are fully impregnated, not simply ‘painted
on’. . Nothing
has been “near enough” everything is exact,
perfectly described
and encased in leaded contours. The stained glass artist is both
architect and engineer. When all was completed in the
workshop-studio, it was carefully transported here on site. The
existing windows were carefully removed and stored, the scaffolding
erected in such ways as not to damage the trees nor desecrate the
hallowed ground in which lie so many of the faithful departed of this
parish. Braced, structured with steel bars, secured with soft
mortar so that any possible movement of the building due to wet or
dry conditions will not cause cracking or crazing to the glass panels
which have been polished and protected with stainless steel mesh
against accident or vandalism.
The
window itself? (I use the singular ‘window’ here)
It depicts two
persons – Simon whom Christ called
“Peter” , dressed in the
saffron robe an Eastern holy man, holding in his hands the bread of
life and with the the two keys of his apostleship – gold for
the
kingdom of heaven, silver for the kingdom on earth – the
Church
-hanging from the rope girdle around his waist. He stands in the
water surrounded by the Galilean Lake full of fish with the boat,
which is a replica of the so called “Jesus Boat”
discovered in 1995 when the waters of the Lake receded due to
drought. It is now housed in the Kibbutz Museum at Nof Ginnosar near
Migdal, birthplace of Mary Magdalene.
In
Christian iconography the boat (like Noah’s Ark) is the
symbol of
hope. Here it represents one of Simon Garing’s pleasure
activities also And here we find Simon Peter’s friends -
James and
John hauling in their fishing net representing all the nations upon
earth.
The
other person in the window on your left is of course the Lord
Himself calling Simon into his true vocation as an apostle.
In
the background are three church buildings sitting on the red earth of
the fertile mountains of the Jezreel Valley and the Lakeside. On the
left is the Church of the Beatitudes – where Jesus preached
his
Sermon on the Mount . Left of centre is the representation of the
little bassalt stone church at Tabgha ( Heptapegon
– the
Place of the Seven Springs) which is the place where Jesus fed the
five thousand; it is also the place where Jesus cooked a breakfast
of fish for his disciples after the Resurrection.
It was
to these three places – Beatitudes, Tabgha and Tabor that
Anne and
I took Ed and Margaret and others of our dear friends on their
pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land just eighteen months ago.
Above
the figure of the Lord we find depicted (left hand panel) the Starry
heavens and (right hand panel) the full Sinai moon of the Jewish
Passover, full, round, such as we acknowledge it every time we hold
out our hands to receive the unleavened Bread of the Eucharist. For
such does it symbolise – the full moon of Christ’s
Passover.
And on
the right is the Church of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor where
Jesus was transfigured and stood between the two great desert
prophets Moses and Elijah while the chosen three –Peter,
James and
John gaze in wonder.
Above
the two main panels is the precious little stained glass trefoil
depicting three fish symbol of the Holy Trinity moving in dynamic
ways around the small basket holding the loaves and fishes of Christs
miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But there is something
strange about our basket, for it shows only four loaves. This
beautiful icon is taken from the fifth century mosaic floor tile in
the little Benedictine Church at Heptapegon. Why only four loaves
when the gospel records five? The Tradition has it that symbolically
and mystically it is you who bring the fifth loaf with you
when
you come to eucharist. The fifth loaf of the Eucharist is
your
offering and no Eucharist is complete without what we bring to
Christ’s holy altar.
Built
into the Windows you will find other precious symbols – the
sprig
of Boronia and another (secret) icon which is for you to discover and
identify
I came
around on Monday morning last with Ed and Marg Garing to meet with
Glenn and his five man team and the last stage was begun, worked upon
and completed by Tuesday and shrouded against this time of
Dedication.
And now
in the presence of Simon’s family and friends the dedication
must
be done and this windows apart to the Glory of God and the
edification of his holy church.
To this
end we recognise the eternal life into which God in sad and mysterious
ways called Simon. This is the family’s recognition
of the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins and the
resurrection to life everlasting.
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