(RNS) New York City’s landmark Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine was rededicated Sunday (Nov. 30), nearly seven years after an electrical fire severely damaged what is called the world’s largest Gothic cathedral.
More than 3,000 people attended Sunday’s ceremony, including New York Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Catholic Cardinal Edward Egan.
“The rededication of this magnificent cathedral church speaks to all of us with such a wonderful sense of not only resurrection and renewal but of a recognition that through all that we have come together there is a constant sense of resilience arising from this cathedral in this great city,” Clinton said, according to published reports.
In December, 2001, just two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a six-alarm fire ignited in a gift shop located in the cathedral’s north transept. Numerous works of art, including tapestries, statuettes and stained-glass windows throughout the 600-foot-long cathedral were damaged by the fire and water. It cost $41 million to repair the cathedral and remove soot from its enormous interior.
Construction on St. John’s began in 1892, and the interior was dedicated in 1941, but after the interruption of two world wars, parts of the cathedral remain unfinished.
Still, the cathedral, one of the largest Anglican churches in the world, remains a Manhattan landmark.
“Cathedrals are planted down to stay and span history,” said the Very Rev. James Kowalski, dean of St. John the Divine, according to published reports. “This cathedral has done that and engaged its culture, this city, our nation, the world.”