Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery
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The Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery is located at 14th and Quincy Streets near the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C. It includes gardens and a replica of the catacombs in Rome, an archive, a library, as well as bones of Saint Benignus of Armagh, brought from the Roman Catacombs and originally in the Cathedral of Narni, Italy. Religious medals can be purchased at the gift shop.
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[edit] History
The Very Reverend Charles A. Vassani (1831–1896) was the first to establish the Commissariat of the Holy Land, in 1880, located in New York at 143 W. 95th Street. It was from this building that Rev. Vassani and Father Godfrey Schilling began to plan to build a "Holy Land in America" and a Holy Sepulchre, which they envisioned crowning a high hill on Staten Island, overlooking the entrance to New York's harbor. The Staten Island plan never materializeSchilling realized their dream on a wooded hilltop in Brookland, near Washington, D.C. In 1897, Fr. Godfrey purchased the McCeeney Estate in Brookland in order to found a monastery and construct his church.
The six Pioneer Brothers originally lived in the abandoned McCeeney house which had rotten floorboards and was over-run with rats. With the site purchased, Fr. Schilling soon engaged theLand and took accurate measurements and photographs of the Holy Sites to be reproduced. A huge wooden cross was erected on the hilltop, which is today the site of the Friars' Cemetery directly behind the Monastery. In February 1898, ground was broken for a new building, and the cornerstone was laid on the Feast of St. Joseph.
the Holy Shrines, Gardens, and Rosary Portico continued throughout the 'teens, 'twenties, and 'thirties. The Church was consecrated in September 1924, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its dedication.
In 1991, Mount St. Sepulchre, with its Monastery and Church, became a National Historic Monument.
[edit] Architecture
The Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulchre was designed by the Roman architect Aristide Leonori, and built between 1898–1899. The floor plan of the church is the five-fold Crusader Cross of Jerusalem, and it is built in the Byzantine style after Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, with some modified Romanesque influences.
Surrounding the church is the Rosary Portico, with fifteen chapels commemorating the lives of Jesus and Mary. Each chapel contains artistic ceramic plaques bearing the Angelic Greeting in nearly two hundred ancient and modern languages. The Rosary Portico is reminiscent of the Cloister of St. John Lateran in Rome and Saint Paul's Outside the Walls. The facade of the portico is decorated with early Christian symbols from the Catacombs.
Attached to the rear of the Church is the Monastery, built in the monastic style of the late Romanesque. The meticulously landscaped Monastery grounds contain replicas of shrines in the Holy Land, as well as a greenhouse. In the early days of the Monastery, the grounds were the site of a small farm, and also included a barn, grain silo, tool sheds, and other outbuildings.
Over the years, the monastery has had many artists and architects—both secular and religious—who have contributed to the development of the site.
[edit] Architects
Aristide Leonori (1857-1928) John Joseph Earley (1881-1945) Brother Cajetan Baumann
[edit] Artists
Charles Bosseron Chambers (1882-1964) Brother Leoni Bracaloni (1885-1975) Charles Svendsen (1871-1959)
[edit] Library & Archives
The Library and Archives of the Franciscan Monastery contain materials in a variety of formats on the Holy Land and the early development of the monastery, as well as materials such as photographs and scrapbooks that document monastic life. The Archives also contains the personal papers of Father Godfrey Schilling, the monastery's founder, and a large collection of vestments.
