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Video & Virtual Tours | |
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Video Behind-the-Scenes Tours: Video requires Windows Media Player. Click on tour title to view the video. | |
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QuickTime Virtual Tours Virtual Tour requires QuickTime. If the image does not appear, you may need to download QuickTime. Click and drag with the mouse to pan across or tilt up and down. Use the Control Key to zoom out and the Shift Key to zoom in, or use the – and + buttons in the navigation palette.
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From The Crossing In any large cruciform church, the square space formed by the intersection of the nave, the chancel, and the transepts is called the crossing. On this part of our virtual tour you are standing in the Great Crossing of Washington National Cathedral at the base of the steps below the carved oak Rood Screen. From this point you are facing east. In the Middle Ages a cathedral was used for many things besides public worship, and so it was necessary to set aside a space to be used exclusively for worship. In English cathedrals a carved wooden screen, called a rood screen, often separated the choir and altar from the nave. The word rood is derived from the Old English word for cross. To Christians a reference to rood is to the cross. From where you are, pan to the left (north) to the stone lectern at the base of the steps. This is the lectern from which lessons are read at services. The canopied niches on the lectern depict seven figures who recorded the Word of God: Moses (the law), David (the Psalter), Elijah (the Prophets), Saint Luke (the Gospels), Saints Peter and Paul (the Epistles), and Saint John the Divine (the Book of Revelation). Pan further left past the north transept and stop at the massive stone column on the northwest corner of the crossing. There is one of these mammoth piers at each of the four corners of the crossing. They rise 98 feet above the floor, and from their bases deep beneath the Cathedral they are 324 feet tall. At the crossing level they are 19 feet in diameter, and at the crypt level directly below in the Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea they are 27 feet in diameter. These massive pillars support the Gloria in Excelsis Tower and its two sets of bells, a 53-bell carillon and a 10-peal bell used in the traditional art of change ringing. Pan left some more until you are centered on the aisle running the length of the nave to the Cathedral’s west end. The magnificent rose window you see is a masterpiece of acclaimed designer Rowan LeCompte. It was fabricated and installed by Dieter Goldkuhle. Set ablaze by the rays of the setting sun, the west rose window is an abstract rendering of the creation. At its center is clear, diamond-bright glass suggesting the Word of God that sets creation in motion. The profusion of colors that radiate from the center represent the variety of creation; the colors change from moment to moment as the sunlight shifts throughout the day. The window is more than 25 feet in diameter and contains more than 10,500 pieces of glass. Continue panning to your left past the southwest pier and across the south transept, and stop when you reach the pulpit. This is the Canterbury Pulpit made from stones from Canterbury Cathedral in England. The stones were taken from the Bell Harry Tower in Canterbury in the late 1800s, when that cathedral was undergoing repair and restoration. Carved in England, the pulpit is decorated with scenes and figures that depict the history of the English Bible. The panels show three illustrious church leaders: the Venerable Bede, an eighth century churchman, dictating on his deathbed a translation of John’s Gospel into Anglo-Saxon; Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, with the Barons at Runnymede, handing the Magna Carta to King John for his seal; and the martyrdom of William Tyndale, the first man to translate, print, and distribute the entire Bible in English. | |