Pittsburgh church installs stained-glass windows honoring the Philadelphia 11, Absalom Jones and Fred Rogers
A worker finishes installing a window dedicated to the Philadelphia 11, the first women priests ordained in The Episcopal Church, at Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It and the windows beside it, honoring Absalom Jones (left) and Fred Rogers, were selected for the subjects’ connection with Pennsylvania, and are located on the second floor of the parish building. The Philadelphia 11 window will be dedicated on Oct. 19, with the others to be dedicated in coming months. Photo: Cameron Soulis
[Episcopal News Service] Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 19 will dedicate a new stained-glass window honoring the Philadelphia 11, the first women ordained as priest in The Episcopal Church.
The window, and two other new ones that flank it, depict people with connections to Pennsylvania. They were installed Oct. 14 in what had been clear glass windows in the parish building, which houses the parish gathering hall, church offices and the choir room.
The other windows feature Absalom Jones, the first Black priest in The Episcopal Church and founder of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia; and Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister () whose children’s TV program “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” ran for 33 years on Pittsburgh’s WQED-TV.
Jones is commemorated on The Episcopal Church’s calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts on Feb. 13.
Each of the three windows is 50 inches tall and 17.5 inches wide. They were made and installed by Emil Frei & Associates, a company located in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, that has been making stained-glass windows since 1898.
A new stained-glass window in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Calvary Episcopal Church honoring the Philadelphia 11 features a woman in Eucharistic vestments raising a large, broken host, with 10 smaller hosts above her. The woman depicted is meant to represent all 11 women ordained as the first priests in The Episcopal Church in 1974. Photo: Courtesy Calvary Episcopal Church
The Philadelphia 11 women’s ordinations took place on July 29, 1974, in Philadelphia’s Church of the Advocate in what the House of Bishops later would declare “irregular” ordinations. While the window honors all 11 women priests, it depicts one woman in Eucharistic vestments raising a large, broken host.
That pose, Calvary’s senior associate rector, the Rev. Cameron Soulis, told Episcopal News Service, is modeled on a photo of the Rev. Alison Cheek, when she became the first woman to celebrate the Eucharist on Nov. 10, 1974, at a service at St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D.C.
But the woman in the window is meant to be “one strong, generic image” to represent all 11 of them, she said, because given the window’s size and shape, there wasn’t room to depict them all. But to remind observers that 11 women were ordained that day, 10 smaller Eucharistic hosts are depicted above the larger one.
On Oct. 18, Calvary is also hosting a screening of the 2023 documentary about the groundbreaking ordinations, “The Philadelphia Eleven.” Among those present for that, and for a conversation afterward, will be the Rev. Nancy Wittig, one of the Philadelphia 11, and Margo Guernsey, the documentary’s producer and director.
Soulis said she was glad people would have the chance to view the documentary and learn “how courageous these women, and the bishops, were.”
She added, “We are so excited that we are able to have with us one of the Philadelphia 11 women to help us celebrate them, celebrate this window and celebrate women’s ordinations,” noting that it also comes two weeks after the announcement that London Bishop Sarah Mullally will become the first female archbishop of Canterbury.
Before the Oct. 19 dedication, Wittig also will take part in an adult forum discussion of women’s ordination.
Soulis said that Calvary’s rector, the Rev. Jonathan Jensen, did research on the existence of any other windows dedicated to the Philadelphia 11 and couldn’t find any. ENS asked Katie Sherrod, who is listed on the documentary’s website as a member of its Film Funder’s Circle, if she knew of any others, and she did not. Sherrod also asked Guernsey, the director, who said she also wasn’t aware of any other such windows.
The church itself is filled with Gothic-style stained-glass windows that were installed decades ago, Soulis said, but windows in the parish building have been plain glass. Thanks to a capital campaign, donors provided funds to create these windows, which are on the second level of the parish building in what Jensen described as “a highly visible and trafficked area.”
The other two windows will be dedicated separately in the future, Soulis said, so each person depicted, and those who contributed to the window’s creation, can be honored.
— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.
