A People's Cathedral

Magisterially perched on the cliffs of Manhattan's Morningside Heights, the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine was founded 100 years ago and grew to be the largest Gothic church in the world. In the long process of construction -the choir arising around the turn of the century, the nave and west front after World War I -the builders expressed an ecumenical vision in the form of special chapels honoring Italian, Spanish, Irish and other ethnic patron saints. But the church was never finished, and it may never be.

Today, on the heights overlooking Harlem, St. John the Divine stands surrounded by an even wider variety of ethnic New Yorkers: blacks and Puerto Ricans, Jews, Cubans, Japanese, some dozen others. It also stands, in its granite splendor, like a monumental island of wealth and power in a sea of urban debris. To overcome that image, the cathedral is now being recast in the role of its great medieval counterparts, to become, in the words of its new dean, the Very Rev. James P. Morton, "a holy place for the whole city."

Since Morton took over the post last fall, the cathedral's deeds have been as good as his resolve. When St. Patrick's Cathedral, cluttered with scaffolding during restoration, could not welcome Labor Organizer Cesar Chavez to New York, St. John's did -with both Roman Catholic and Jewish officials in attendance. Last winter angry Indian leaders stood in its pulpit to argue the issues dramatized at Wounded Knee. On Inauguration night last January, New Yorkers crowded St. John's for a "Vigil for the Peace" that featured prayers, poetry, dance and drama. Continuing a musical exuberance that has included an anniversary Mass for Hair, the cathedral's vaulted nave has lately reverberated with Harlem soul and songs from Godspell as well as the traditional Bach organ recitals. But Morton has begun long-lasting projects too:

>> The cathedral backed an ambitious pilot program to encourage the poor to rehabilitate, and ultimately own, their own apartments. With an initial seed-money loan from St. John's, a group of poor, racially mixed tenants took over a nearby city-owned tenement, stripped the shabby interiors and are building modern apartments to replace the narrow, cold-water flats. The city is providing money for building materials and such necessary professional help as plumbing and electrical advisers. In return for their "sweat equity," the builder-residents will make payments as low as $80 per month and ultimately own the building as a cooperative. The city now plans more such projects.

>> The cathedral has become the official home for some ten independent organizations, ranging from the Puerto Rican Dance Theater to the Thomas Merton Life Center, an ecumenical group devoted to nonviolence.

>> A "non-seminary," the Cathedral Institute of Theology, will begin classes next fall for laymen and women as well as Episcopal ministerial candidates. Headed by Cathedral Canon and Theologian William Johnson, the institute will offer both academic and practical courses on evenings and Saturdays.

>> Another academic venture sponsored by the cathedral is the Schola Musicae Liturgicae, a consortium of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish seminaries and musical institutions for the study of sacred music and allied arts.

>> The cathedral has played host this year for classes in the Chinese contemplative exercises, Tai Chi Chuan, and for a series of workshops in Sufism, an ancient mystical offspring of Islam. The cathedral is Christian," explains Morton, "but there are other religious experiences we can make available, spiritual disciplines that at the moment are difficult to find in Christianity."

Perhaps the most ambitious program of all is the one Dean Morton envisions for the uncompleted cathedral building. Morton won honors as an architecture student (Harvard, '51) before becoming a minister, and these days he leads visitors through the unused cathedral crypt to demonstrate his hopes. For one vast, two-story room in the crypt, Morton is working on plans for a Greek-style theater. In a vaulted side chamber he would like to see a balconied restaurant to serve both neighborhood families and the cathedral's daily flocks of tourists. Other chambers could become studios, lecture halls and program areas for community groups.

Morton's plans for the cathedral also include building up St. John's more traditional role as the seat of the Episcopal diocese of New York, a project, like all the others, that has the enthusiastic backing of the man who nominated him to be dean, the diocese's activist new bishop, the Rt. Rev. Paul Moore Jr. The congenial alliance between Morton and Moore goes back more than 20 years, to a day when Moore, then a young inner-city pastor in Jersey City, visited Harvard. Morton was fascinated with Moore's vision of the church as a vigorous community center. Within a year Morton began studying for Episcopal ordination, and he later joined Moore's team ministry in Jersey City. In 1964 Morton began an eight-year tenure as the director of the adventurous Urban Training Center for Christian Mission in Chicago. Still an enthusiastic innovator, he hopes that St. John's can produce "profound alternatives for the major directions of civilization."

Morton is pleased that at least one group of young people has already chosen the cathedral as the base for one of those alternatives: a religious communi ty. The five men and three women, ranging in age from 20 to 30, went through a virtual catalogue of religious experiences before undergoing their Christian conversions. Now known as the Trees Group, they live in an apartment near the church, regularly give concerts at the cathedral and also perform tasks like guiding cathedral visitors. This fall they will take preliminary vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

How do more conservative Episcopalians appraise Morton's efforts? One important voice among them, the Rev. Carroll E. Simcox, editor of the Episcopal weekly The Living Church, allows that Morton "would do and say things that I would not, but as a conservative and traditionalist, I have an ultimate trust and confidence in him."

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