St. John's Cathedral (Los Angeles)

The new church opened in 1924, after two years of construction, and was consecrated in 1925. The Los Angeles Times reported that the last service in the old church was "rife with tender memories" and an "added charm and reverence pervaded the occasion."^[9] When the new church opened the following week, the Times called it "one of the most beautiful and costly edifices in the country."^[10] Another report noted: "Critics declare it the most beautiful in Los Angeles."^[11] Built at a cost of $650,000 (approximately $9.17 million in 2023^[12]), the church was described at the time as a "close copy of an Italian church of the sixth century in built at Toscanella."^[10]

The church's walls are made of reinforced concrete two and a half feet thick clear to the roof, and the structure is 69 feet from floor to ceiling.^[11] The wood-beamed ceiling is a reproduction of a church ceiling from the 11th century at San Miniato, near Florence.^[11] The altar is made of Italian marble, and the triptych was carved by Oberammergau workmen.^[11] The interior includes a stained glass window featuring Martin Luther King Jr., installed in 1977. Other windows include a Romanesque rose window. Another striking feature of the church is found in the gold mosaics on the chapel walls. One mosaic depicts the Virgin Mary and Christ child modeled after a 13th-century mosaic at the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello, Italy. There is also a mosaic of Jesus as judge, holding a Bible and giving a blessing, a 12th-century convention.^[8]

At the time the new church opened in 1924, St. John's had 2,000 communicants on its membership list and was the largest Episcopal church west of Chicago.^[11]

In 1947, The Seven Angels mosaics were added to the church at a cost of $150,000 (approximately $1.61 million in 2023^[12]). The figures of the angels, each eight feet high and holding a musical instrument, were made of Italian marble with gold mosaic and stand in arched panels. The mosaics were created in Italy by five artists who spent two years working on them.^[13]

In 1970, Carter drew media attention when he closed the large ceremonial front doors of the church as a protest against the Vietnam War. He noted that the doors were closed "as a sign of our penitence and sorrow, as well as protest. Penitence for our silence and hence our part in the bloodshed. ... Protest that once again our beloved country has chosen guns and bombs instead of other means of reconciliation."^[15] The doors remained closed for three years until the war ended.

At the April 1973 ceremony at which the doors were reopened, Carter noted, "This is no moment of triumph. We reopen our doors as an affirmation, to a peace ... which will offer mankind a new life on this planet."^[15] The ceremony was interspersed with the sounding of a shofar, the ram's horn traditionally used in Jewish services. Though he considered the peace to be no more than an "armistice" enforced by the "terror of nuclear warheads," Carter said that the church "chose this moment to signify our thanksgiving that our bombers no longer rake the ravaged land, that our prisoners of war are finally home and our fighting forces withdrawn (from) an enterprise which drained the spiritual as well as the material resources of our land."^[15]

In recent years, the St. John's community actively voiced its opposition to the War in Iraq and other interventions in the Middle East. Each Sunday, the names of each American military person who died in the war were read at the church's services. A banner at the back of the church had a cross marked for each American death in the war. And during the procession of the palms during Palm Sunday services, members of the congregation carried anti-war protest signs along with their palms.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2007, Bishop J. Jon Bruno announced that St. John's had been named the procathedral of the Diocese of Los Angeles, with the cathedral functions to be shared with the Cathedral Center of St. Paul in Echo Park. Larger diocesan liturgical functions are carried out at St. John's while all other diocesan offices and functions are located at St. Paul's. The dedication was held in February 2008.^[8]

The Very Rev. Canon Mark Kowalewski, former rector of St. John's, noted that the changes were the culmination of years of conversations.^[8] He noted that when the current church was first built in the 1920s, its first rector, Fr. Davidson had wanted it to become the diocesan cathedral.^{[citation needed]}