The Chapel

Hallowed Ground

Religious ceremony and the Presidio have gone hand in hand since Native Americans held this land sacred.

Two Catholic priests were among the small troop of Spanish explorers who came to the Bay Area from Phoenix in March 1776. They erected a cross and conducted religious ceremonies on the windswept Punta de Cantil Blanco - the point where the Golden Gate Bridge now meets land at Fort Point.

A tiny chapel was among the first buildings raised on the Presidio, where Mass was said. The official dedication of the Presidio as a Spanish fort on September 17, 1776, was primarily a religious ceremony.

The activities of the soldiers and the priests at the Presidio were closely intertwined in both the Spanish and the Mexican occupations. One of the first soldiers from the United States to occupy the Presidio was a chaplain, Thaddeus Leavenworth, in 1846. He later became mayor of San Francisco.

In 1864, the U.S. Army built a small wooden chapel near the site of the former Spanish/Mexican chapel. This interfaith chapel served the religious needs of the Presidio community through the turn of the century.

For years thereafter, post commanders urged the construction of a larger chapel. The Army Appropriations Acts of 1930-31 finally provided the $40,000 to build the Presidio's Main Chapel. The Army held regular services there until they vacated the building on September 30, 1995.

The Interfaith Center went in the next day with a Gathering of Blessings ceremony where representatives from numerous faith families commemorated the transition in Chapel stewardship from military to civilian hands. The following March, the Center was invited to occupy the building on a temporary basis and make it available to the public.

Three years later the tenancy went from temporary to long term. The Interfaith Center was awarded the right to negotiate a long-term lease for the care and custody of the Main Post Chapel. The lease is contingent on raising the funds for a renovation, bringing the building up to code, and making it accessible to all. Leading the renovation team is J. Gordon Turnbull, FAIA, of Page and Turnbull, one of the nation's most distinguished restoration architectural firms.

Spanish Mission Revival Architecture back to top

Built in the early 1930s, this cruciform-shaped sanctuary is a fine example of Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture, with features that embellished early mission churches. Stained glass windows depict virtues of military character, and a large wall mural by Victor Arnautoff (famed Coit Tower muralist) depicts the peacetime activities of the Army.The cruciform shaped two-story sanctuary, with attached three-story bell tower, measures roughly 57' x 84' in plan. It is reinforced concrete with a low gable, mission tile roof. The stucco-finished walls are heavily textured. The building is a fine example of Spanish Mission Revival, with the same baroque features that embellished the architecture of early mission churches.

The bell tower received a fine bronze bell in 1933. The same year, an arched stained glass window was installed over the entrance and dedicated to the 30th Infantry Regiment. It shows a Union and a World War I Soldier and contains dates significant to them.

Stained-glass Windows & Military Virtues

There are eleven more arched stained glass windows in the sanctuary. They were designed by Willemina E. A. M. Ogterop and contributed by various veterans organizations. Their themes depict virtues typifying military character - Courage, Mercy, Martyrdom, Loyalty, Justice, Truth, Reverence, Honor, Sacrifice, Motherhood, and Daring. Courage was contributed by the American Legion; Loyalty was contributed by the Grand Army of the Republic; Justice was contributed by the Spanish American War Veterans; and Truth, Reverence, Honor, and Sacrifice, were presented by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The three chancel windows represent Hope, Love, and Faith.

Memorial plaques adorn the walls of the sanctuary, marking the passing of soldiers who served at the Presidio. A granite memorial to Army chaplains was erected in front of the Chapel in 1973. Two years later, a Memorial Garden was dedicated. In 1986, a memorial to Vietnam Veterans was dedicated adjacent to the garden.

The Presidio Mural back to top

A notable artistic feature of the Main Post Chapel is a large fresco painted in 1935 by Victor Arnautoff and his assistants. With St. Francis at its center, the mural depicts a historical pageant related to the founding of the Presidio and the peacetime activities of the Army. Recognized as a leading artist of the period, Arnautoff painted the murals at Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and in Washington High School, and taught graphic arts at Stanford.

Victor Mikhail Arnautoff was born in the Ukraine in 1896. He served as Cavalry officer in Czar Nicholas II's army, received the Cross of the Order of St. George for valor, and escaped to Manchuria to avoid the Bolshevik Revolution.

Once in San Francisco, Arnautoff was appointed technical director of the Coit Tower fresco mural, a project of the Works Progress Administration, which was completed in late 1934. In December 1934, Arnautoff was appointed to do a fresco for the east wall of the Presidio Chapel under the State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA). A December 30 Examiner article reports:

“The design will measure approximately 13 feet by 34 feet,” Arnautoff informed me. “In the central panel (B), which will be devoted to religion, will be the figure of St. Francis surrounded by trees. On the left side (A) will be depicted the early history of California; on the right (C), the Army today occupied in the development of science, the radio, (D & E) Army engineers examining the project of the Golden Gate Bridge, and approving the construction."

Arnautoff is a product of the California School of Fine Arts. His foundation in fresco painting came from Ray Boynton. Then he went to Mexico where there are large spaces to paint, and studied with Diego Rivera. This was before Rivera left his footprints, metaphorically speaking, in San Francisco.

“When Rivera came to San Francisco,” Arnautoff added, “he left me in charge of the wall decoration in the National Palace. I also worked with him in the Palace of Cortez at Cuernavaca. With practical experience, under his guidance, I became familiar with the chemical composition of plaster and the principles of mural painting.”
(S.F. Examiner, December 30, 1934)

The public and the press were delighted with the mural. A June 23, 1935, Examiner article reports, “Arnautoff has done admirable work. His design is sound both in detail and in the large. His decoration is bright, interesting, appropriate. The fresco is ideally located. It is easily visible from end to end. It looks over a vista of Presidio and bay. People will be visiting it for many a day.”

The mural was sponsored by the officers of the Thirtieth U.S. Infantry, according to the State Relief Administration Review of Activities 1933?35, where it is listed as Project Number 2-F3-100 - public works of art.

Historical figures are depicted in the mural. In the upper left we see Maria de la Concepcion Marcela Arguello, born in the Presidio in 1791 and betrothed at the age of 15 to Russian Chamberlain Nikolai Rezanov. Her father, Presidio Commandante Don Jose Arguello, stands behind them. Theirs is a story of romance and tragedy, as Nikolai died riding horseback across Siberia to obtain royal and ecclesiastical permission for their marriage. A locket he wore was eventually returned to Concepcion, proving he died loving her. She was the first native daughter to become a nun, entering the Dominican Order in 1851. She died in 1857 and was buried Christmas Eve at St. Catherine Convent in Benicia.

The right side of the mural shows some of the peacetime activities of the Army - developing radio communications, fighting forest fires, and through its Corps of Engineers, designing the locks at the Panama Canal. Planning the Golden Gate Bridge is depicted with the officer showing great disdain on his face. We see the bridge design calls for the removal of Ft. Point. The bridge was built five years later in 1938 with an arch over Ft. Point, saving the historic site for the enjoyment and education of many generations to come.

The McDonald Windows Story back to top

World War II Shards Find New Light

Two dozen stained glass windows are being created by Armelle LaRoux and a team of stained-glass artists from Reflection Studios in Emeryville, California, across the Bay from San Francisco. The windows are being built around shards of stained glass collected from the rubble of World War II by U.S. Army Chaplain Frederick Alexander McDonald in 1944-45. The vision includes touring the windows internationally with their story about the search for light and hope in the darkest times. The new windows will be permanently installed in the lower level of the Main Post Chapel.

Collecting stained-glass shards

He picked up shards from the rubble, remnants from stained-glass windows never to reveal their stories again. The glass fragments rested in his hands - ancient glass created to mediate light in sacred space, blown apart in the ravages of war, now rescued somehow, pieces of glass in hand. In hand, for what?

Chaplain Frederick A. McDonald collected a file box full of stained-glass fragments, divided into envelopes with names identifying their sources, the names litany for the millions touched by WWII - Periers, Wiesbaden, Thionville, Metz, Coutances, Verdun, Aachen, Malmedy, Kolner Dom, Verviers, Bastogne, Dinant, Maestricht, Trier, Nuremburg, Coventry, London, Biarritz.

Rev. McDonald was the pastor of St. David's Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon, December, 1941, when the United States entered the war. Long perturbed by Hitler and his followers, McDonald applied to the chaplaincy corps. The Army said yes, and on his 34th birthday the pastor said goodbye to his parishioners. After Chaplain School at Harvard University, he was stationed at San Francisco's Fort Mason. His first assignment was to build and dedicate the Fort Mason Chapel, then to manage the worship held by different faith groups that used it.

In early 1944, Chaplain McDonald was one of 90 chaplains who crossed the Atlantic on Saturnia evading German submarines and disembarking in Liverpool. Weeks later, in July, he was the first of his group sent to the continent.

The assignment was so secret that his orders and travel directory omitted naming his destination. Fred was taken to an apple orchard in the small town of Periers, in Normandy, where the U.S. military headquarters was billeted in tents. He and a Roman Catholic colleague were assigned to serve the 12th Army Group, led by U.S. General Omar Bradley.

In fact, "Headquarters" with its 6,000 troops was divided into three groups. Bradley and his leadership - the smallest group - were much closer to enemy lines than the other two. For the next 12 months Fred and his Catholic counterpart drove hundreds of miles across war-torn countryside, offering worship and pastoral support to the small army of military professionals who marched the Allies into Germany. On one occasion the kindness of a stranger kept Fred from driving right into a Nazi encampment.

Young McDonald was well-traveled before the war. He loved hiking and visited a multitude of sanctuaries, fueling a lifelong passion for religious architecture and stained glass. He gave two stained-glass windows to St. David's in Portland and at Fort Mason commissioned the new chapel's windows.

So Frederick McDonald's habit of visiting the bombed-out remnants of cathedrals, churches, temples, and synagogues - regardless of their particular traditions - is no surprise. The "bits of glass" he picked up - rarely more than a handful, provide a tangible record of these visits. St. John's in Red Lion Square, London, a favorite place for Fred to worship, was obliterated. Most sanctuaries he visited were heavily damaged. A few survived. In Cologne, 1,000 British bombers mixed incendiaries with their explosives - "Only the Cathedral survived, burned and baked, but standing tall."

Millions of men and women around the world joined hands to quell fascism. Decades later they became known as "the greatest generation" for their contribution. The new windows inspired by Fred McDonald's story are a memorial to those who lived and died for this cause.

On May 8, 1945, WWII ended in Europe. Only but a few hours notice, Fred preached to the Allies commanding officer General Bradley and his colleagues. His text came from the prophet Jeremiah, where God charges Israel with "proclaiming liberty to one another." Defending the peace and freedom of all people is what the war was about, Fred says in his sermon, a freedom of choice which would have been lost had the war been lost. Acknowledging the "hard times" and "griefs" they experienced, he finishes saying "Surely today we may exchange the spirit of heaviness with the garment of joyful praise!"

Creating stained-glass windows

The shards and their story were closeted for half a century. Then one evening at dinner a friend named Sue Tom raised the subject of stained glass. Fred told his tale, and those at the table were flabbergasted by what they heard. Jean and Bill Wright along with others at Sequoias, a San Francisco senior retirement community, contacted Reflection Studios, a nationally renowned stained-glass studio. Alan Dragge, president of Reflection, and Armelle LaRoux, an artist on staff, visited retired Chaplain McDonald. Fred took out the envelopes of glass and told the story of each location. The brief paragraphs were transcribed. Each tale has its own images and power. Taken together the collection weaves a tapestry conveying the incredible cost of overcoming tyranny and the fragility, resourcefulness, resilience of human beings.

Chaplain McDonald passed away March 9, 2002 at the age of 93. In his memoir, Remembered Light (1995), Fred says of his collection of shards, "I had thought that after the war they might be worked into a memorial window somewhere." (Page 228) Queried more recently about why he collected the glass, Rev. McDonald talked about "bringing survival values into our own time." By survival values, he added, he means "our inward apprehension of the Spirit," something he emphasized all people share and recognize, regardless of religion and culture. The glass shards - designed to cast sacred light into a sanctuary - remind him of our deepest values and how they are absorbed and lived.

Ms. LaRoux and Fred McDonald met many times. She studied the location stories and began designing a series of two dozen windows being built around the shards. Portions of the narratives will be etched into the windows.

Armelle LaRoux established herself as an artist and stained-glass specialist in her native France before coming to the United States. Long after World War II became a memory for her parents, Armelle was raised in Brittany, not so far from sites where Chaplain McDonald collected the shards. Today she has invited other young stained-glass artists, all a generation removed from the war, to share a chaplain's shards and stories about a conflict their grandparents suffered. Twenty-first century artists, they are studying a tragic history and their own deepest inclinations about the journey from war to peace, from tyranny to freedom. The windows they are creating memorialize and honor those who paid such a huge price in the 1940s for our freedom ever since.

An Interfaith Healing Pole back to top

An 800-year-old Alaskan cedar tree is being sculpted into an interfaith healing pole. For the better part of the 20th century, this ancient red cedar and at least dozen others like it protected U. S. naval vessels at Port Chicago, California, while munitions and bombs were loaded. Permission granted, it will be raised on a ridge 75 feet below the Presidio's Main Post Chapel. Shane Eagleton is the sculptor in the project sponsored by the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.

Originally from Fiji, Shane Eagleton is a master woodcarver and educator. For 20 years he has created a multitude of sculptures. Trees are not sacrificed for his artwork. He only uses naturally fallen timber or recycled wood. The tree becomes the medium for the message. Eagleton's artwork abounds with images from the natural world, bringing attention to the plight of endangered species. For him the cause has become spiritually grounded; giving trees a second life is symbolic of treating the whole planet and its endangered life-forms with more care and respect. As in hundreds of other poles Mr. Eagleton has carved around the world, the Interfaith Healing Pole will feature the design of DNA, the substance shared by all that lives. Against this DNA motif, Shane will carve images, figures, and symbols drawn from the world's religious and spiritual traditions, indigenous and established.

The Healing Pole will be blessed and dedicated to interfaith peoples all over the world who work for peace among religions and nations.