During Easter Vigil, cathedral to observe 30th anniversary of Oklahoma City bombing

[Episcopal News Service] April 19 marks 30 years since 168 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in a truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

The explosion extensively damaged St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral two blocks away, causing a two-year closure and $7.5 million in renovations. The congregation, however, remained close. Parishioners worshiped in the parish hall as they collectively grieved and healed physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Because the bombing anniversary falls on Holy Saturday this year, St. Paul’s will dedicate its Easter Vigil service to commemorating the victims and survivors. The service will begin at 8 p.m. Central.

“There are years that the anniversary comes and slips up on me, and some years are smoother than others. But I have noticed that I’m feeling a little more tender [this year] with it being the week of Easter,” Dianne Dooley, a survivor and co-director of St. Paul’s altar guild, told Episcopal News Service. Dooley was working at the Department of Veterans Affairs office in the Murrah Federal Building when the bomb went off three days after Easter, and suffered a compound fracture to her right wrist.

“Thirty years is a lifetime that a lot of people didn’t get when they passed away in 1995, and I’ve had a second lifetime,” Dooley said. “I think back on all that transpired in those 30 years, and it just reminds me how fragile life is.”

Dooley and her husband learned about and later joined St. Paul’s and The Episcopal Church after attending a grief workshop following the attack for survivors at St. Crispin’s Conference Center + Camp in Wewoka, which is owned by the Diocese of Oklahoma.

St. Paul’s Easter Vigil service will commence at the Survivor Tree within the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, where the Murrah Federal Building once stood. The Survivor Tree is an American elm that survived the bomb’s blast; it stands in what was the parking lot between the Murrah Federal Building and the Journal Record Building – now named The Heritage – which houses the museum.

The congregation will light a Paschal candle and 168 luminarias with the names and pictures of those who died in the bombing. They will then process to the cathedral with the luminarias and candle. The rest of the service will be livestreamed once everyone is inside the cathedral.

Susan Urbach – a verger, Eucharistic minister and assistant treasurer of St. Paul’s, as well as the president of the Diocese of Oklahoma’s Standing Committee – was working as director of the Oklahoma Small Business Development Center on the third floor of the Journal Record Building when the bomb exploded. She suffered injuries throughout her body and spent several hours in surgery.

“Whenever a tragedy happens, everybody wants life to go back to normal, the way it was before that bad event happened. But it can’t, and that’s probably one of the hardest things to begin to say,” Urbach told ENS. “Ultimately, there will be a new normal, and it won’t be the same. … Healing is different for everyone. We would like for healing to come quickly, but it doesn’t happen that way.”

Urbach said St. Paul’s was crucial to her physical, spiritual and emotional recovery. After she was discharged from the hospital, parishioners provided food, took care of her cats, helped change her dressings and washed her hair.

“I am just so grateful for my church family,” said Urbach, who previously served as senior warden of St. Paul’s.

Immediately after the bombing, at least 100 volunteer clergy and lay leaders from St. Paul’s worked together to feed first responders and rescue workers as they cleaned debris and recovered bodies from the rubble.

That sense of helping people affected by the bombing remains instilled in cathedral members today. For example, many of them volunteer every year at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, the largest fundraiser for the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. Their actions abide by the “Oklahoma Standard,” a statewide initiative borne from the bombing to promote a culture of service, honor and kindness. 

For Oklahoma Bishop Poulson Reed, “that just sums up the Christian faith of the cathedral.”

“As bishop, I have been so impressed in the five years that I have been here with the deep faith of our cathedral members, and I believe that, in some respects, it is due to how faithfully they responded to that incredible tragedy,” Reed told ENS. “We had members of our cathedral community who were directly impacted by that horrible day – by that violence – and yet they were able to rely on their faith to overcome the trauma of that day to bring healing and hope not only to the cathedral, but to the city.”

Reed and St. Paul’s clergy will lead the cathedral’s Easter Vigil service, when 14 people will be baptized. Forty people will be confirmed, including Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt’s children, George and Margaret. A lifelong Episcopalian and a member of the Osage Nation, Holt and his family are parishioners of St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City.

“Like all members of the OKC faith community, The Episcopal Church stepped up in 1995 to help our community heal,” Holt told ENS in an email. “We all continue to work together in OKC to support those who lost a loved one and those who survived, while also working to make sure that the lessons of April 19th are never forgotten. Christian love is the purest answer to hatred, dehumanization and violence.”

On the morning of the anniversary, Holt will speak at the annual memorial service downtown. Since he took office in 2018, Holt has addressed the direct challenges of extremism in every speech. In the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, two anti-government extremists – mastermind Timothy McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols – retaliated against the federal government’s handling of the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992 in Idaho and the Waco siege in 1993 in Texas.

Former President Bill Clinton, who was president when the bombing occurred, is also scheduled to speak at the citywide memorial service this year.

During the memorial service, St. Paul’s will separately hold its livestreamed Holy Saturday morning worship service at 9, when the cathedral’s bell will toll 168 times. 

Throughout St. Paul’s 45,000-square-foot campus, remnants of the bombing intentionally remain, including some debris nestled into the walls within the garden and columbarium. The wrought iron memorial gate bears “April 19” on top and 168 circles; some circles have an additional comma-like marker inside to signify those who were pregnant when they died. Most of the remains of the original Celtic cross that fell from the top of the cathedral’s doors and shattered are now embedded into the wall above the gate.

“We have these very tangible memories not just of this very tragic event that happened, but also reminders that it wasn’t the last thing that happened,” the Very Rev. Katie Churchwell, dean of St. Paul’s, told ENS. “We are marked by a painful act of violence, but we are not frozen by that moment. …The scars on our building reflect the people inside it – imperfect, but also sacred and claimed by God.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.