Week 9

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
February 28 – March 5, 2011

The New Church – the Swedenborgs
Last Saturday we went to the Bryn Athyn Cathedral of The New Church, the Pitcairn castle like homes; Glencairn, and Cairnwood. Imagine being so wealthy that you could build a castle to keep your collection of medieval artifacts and Christian relics. Imagine that you could take the pictures of a castle from a fairy tale book and turn it into your home. Then, on the rolling hills down from your castle on the hill, build yourself a real gothic cathedral and fill it with the most beautiful stained glass (you do own PPG – Pittsburg Plate Glass), intricate wood carvings, and marvelous metal castings. Then to complete the picture, you have your own farm, school, and lovely little community for the people who attend the cathedral services. It is truly a beautiful place, idyllic like old European made new in America in the first half of the 20th century. In all its beauty and pomp, there is a hollow tone to the place.
We toured the grounds amazed at the art, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine, French, German, and English artifacts. In some cases, carved shrines were lifted along with the surrounding castle stones from their European castles and put right in to the walls of Glencairn. We were given a tour of the cathedral by a member of the New Church and the members seemed to be largely devoted to worship of the beautiful architecture and ceremony of the cathedral and that any specific church doctrines mentioned were bland and almost incidental to the worship. It certainly would be an awe inspiring place to attend Sunday services. The grounds and buildings are kept immaculately clean and in good repair. There is free gourmet coffee (how I hate to miss out on free stuff) and there are no fees except for one special tour. There must yet be a large endowment from the Pitcairn family or other rich church members still in place.
We took these photos.