Winter Solstice Marks New Dawn for Ancient Monument: Stonehenge Visitor Center is Now Open

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

Overhaul of 4,000-year-old monument cost $44 million. Photo courtesy of CNN.

We are headed to a Winter Solstice party this Saturday, December 21st. Our party however will be nothing compared to the celebration taking place at Stonehenge in England, where they've just opened a new $44 million Visitor's Center. The winter solstice is the high holyday of Stonehenge--the time at which the sun appears at noon at its lowest altitude above the horizon. The winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, and other terms are often used for the day on which it occurs, such as "midwinter", "the longest night" or "the shortest day". But what do you take to a Winter Solstice party? "Ornaments in the shape of the sun, stars, and other pagan symbols..." recommends legal expert Dusty Sparks, because it is based on the four elements of earth, wind, water, and fire.

People walk towards the new Stonehenge visitor center, Dec. 11, 2013.

On the huge wall of the main area the landscape digitally transforms over millennia. 

New exhibition includes a forensic reconstruction of an early Neolithic man's face

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54 Days In The Eternal City: A Christian 'Pilgrimage' For Lent

NPR

Each year, millions of people from different faiths make religious journeys. They travel far, to Mecca, Jerusalem, the Ganges River or Lourdes, France, to walk the paths of prophets, saints and martyrs. “Pilgrimage is something built into the human condition,” says George Weigel, author of Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches. “There seems to be something hardwired into us, spiritually, that the idea of a journey from A to B becomes part of the rhythm of the spiritual life.” In Roman Pilgrimage, Weigel, with his photographer son Steven Weigel and art historian Elizabeth Lev, tells the story of a spiritual trek that takes place in the Eternal City each Lent and Easter.[link]

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Hoping to Save the Remains of a Ming Dynasty Temple

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow

CHINA---First a printing press, then real estate developers, now a welding-machine factory. Everyone has taken a piece of Nianhua Si, or Picking Flowers Temple, a Ming dynasty place of worship in the storied Drum Tower district of Beijing. Yet the real threat to the temple — dozens of historically and religiously significant buildings begun in 1581, the ninth year of the reign of the Wanli Emperor, and given its present name in 1734 during the Qing dynasty — isn’t decay, say residents and conservationists. It’s redevelopment. [link]

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Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Bermuda Opens With New Paintings

BERNEWS

BERMUDA---On Friday night, Bermuda’s Ethiopian Orthodox Church opened their doors as locals were invited to learn about their traditions and view their intricately painted church icons created by an Ethiopian Monk Priest. The Debra Ganet Immanuel Cathedral in St George’s features an interior full of painted icons by Abba Gebre Hiwot Wolde Samuel, who was born in a small village in Ethiopia, and ordained as a Monk Priest when he was 18 years old. [link]

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Bringing Back the Artistic Beauty of a 19th-Century Church: Cost $4.5 Million

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By David Gonzalez

David Gonzalez/The New York Times

NEW YORK---The stunningly decorated sanctuary of St. Anselm’s Church in the South Bronx is a marvel of art and architecture, capturing Byzantine, Greek, Italian and German styles. A similar mix is reflected in the Roman Catholic congregation, whose members hail from at least 16 countries. Under one roof, they are of one heart. Unfortunately, you can also see the deterioration in the church, which was founded in 1892 by Benedictine monks from Germany and inspired by the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. After months of study, he estimated that 90 percent of the building could be restored. What was not so easily attainable was the approximately $4.5 million needed to finance the project.[link]

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Francesco Vezzoli’s Italian Church Art Is Halted on Its Way to NYC's PS1

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ted Loos and Gaia Pianigiani

The church packed for its planned trip to New York.

ITALY---It was a typically elaborate, provocative move by the Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli in a career full of them: He had contracted to buy the ruins of an old deconsecrated church in the southern Italian town of Montegiordano and had planned to ship them to New York, brick by brick, for exhibition in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. But “The Church of Vezzoli,” as the exhibition was to be called, was canceled Monday in the midst of a legal imbroglio in Italy. The MoMA PS1 show was meant to be the third leg of “The Trinity,” a multicity retrospective of Mr. Vezzoli’s work. [link]

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Sunnis Close Baghdad Mosques to Challenge Religious Attacks

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Associated Press

IRAQ---Iraqi Sunni religious leaders said Saturday that they had decided to close down the sect’s mosques in Baghdad indefinitely to protest attacks against clerics and worshipers, highlighting the country’s deepening sectarian rift. Many mosques appeared to comply with the order to close. In Baghdad’s Sunni northern district of Azamiya, a banner at the closed gate of the Abu Hanifa mosque said, “The mosque is closed until further notice because of the targeting of imams, preachers and worshipers.” [link]

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Restored Rome Catacomb Frescoes Add to Debate on Women Priests

RUETERS
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY---Proponents of a female priesthood say frescoes in the newly restored Catacombs of Priscilla prove there were women priests in early Christianity. The Vatican says such assertions are sensationalist "fairy tales". Art lovers and the curious around the world who cannot get to Rome can join the debate by using a virtual visit to the underground labyrinth by Google Maps, a first-time venture mixing antiquity and modern high technology. The Catacombs of Priscilla are also famous for a fresco which experts believe is the oldest known image of the Madonna and Child, dating to about 230 AD. Lost for centuries after its entrances were sealed in ancient time, the catacombs were re-discovered in the 16th century and plundered of many gravestones, sarcophagi and bodies. Excavations in modern times began in the 19th century. [link]

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Restoration of Interiors of Sikh Golden Temple to Begin Soon

SIKHSIYASAT 
By Parmjit Singh

Detail from the blackend golden plating from the temple

INDIA---It is learnt that the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee has hired a private firm to restore the interiors/wall-paintings at Darbar Sahib. The gold-plating inside the shrine has turned black apparently due to rising pollution while at a few places it is peeling off the walls. Similarly, the artwork on the upper floor has also suffered damage at various spots, particularly along the staircases leading to the top floor. When launched, it would be the first ever ‘kar sewa’ on the interiors of the shrine. The gold-plating and the artwork inside the Golden Temple dates to the Maharaja Ranjeet Singh era. The interiors of Sri Harmandar Sahib boast of rare architecture comprising ‘mohrakashi’, ‘tukri’ and ‘gach’ work. [link]

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Prince Charles Visits Sufi-Muslim Saint's Tomb

THE TELEGRAPH
By Dean Nelson, Mumbai

The Prince of Wales views the tomb of Saint Haji Ali during a tour of the Haji Ali Mosque in Mumbai, India, on the sixth day of his official visit with the Duchess of Cornwall.

INDIA---The Prince of Wales laid flowers on the tomb of one of India's most revered Sufi saints today as its imam prayed for the health and happiness of Britain's royal family. The visit to the shrine or 'dargah' of Haji Ali Shah Bukhari, one of Mumbai's most celebrated landmarks, was to support the restoration of its 500 year old building and to promote dialogue between different faiths. The shrine commemorates the devotion of Haji Ali, a wealthy merchant who migrated from Bukhara and died while making his Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. [link]

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Religious Sanctuary Creating Peace Through Art in Portland

PORTLAND TRIBUNE
By Josh Kulla

Artwork by founder Father John Domin in SSA collection

OREGON---Though all art is sacred to Paula Hamilton, religious artwork is even more so. As executive director of Sanctuary for Sacred Arts, collecting and cataloging sacred art is now her job. Sanctuary for Sacred Arts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving theology and the arts. Its mission is “to foster and encourage the promotion, use, development, study and preservation of sacred arts and architecture.” Sanctuary for Sacred Arts not only displays religious art in churches, including St. Francis of Assisi, but also in colleges, universities, abbeys and other religious and public spaces in the Pacific Northwest. Also, Hamilton is working to gather images of sacred art and architecture from all religions on its website, s4sa.org, thanks to an American Theology Library Association grant. [link]

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Vatican to Display Bones of St. Peter for the First Time

RELIGION NEWS SERVICE 
By Eric J. Lyman

"Crucifixion of Saint Peter" (1601) by Caravaggio 

VATICAN---The Vatican said it would display for the first time bones believed to be the mortal remains of St. Peter, the leader of Jesus’ 12 apostles, to mark the end of the Year of Faith, Nov. 24. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, wrote in Monday’s editions of L’Osservatore Romano, that the Catholic faithful making a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb to mark the end of the Year of Faith will enjoy “the exposition … of the relics traditionally recognized as those of the apostle who gave his life for the Lord on this spot.” [link]

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A Marriage Made in Art Heaven

THE NEW YORK TIMES

NEW YORK---Emma Butterfield Presler and Steven Yong Lee were married Saturday at Grace Church in New York, where they met. The Rev. J. Donald Waring, an Episcopal priest and the rector of the church, performed the ceremony. The bride, is the manager of the department of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The groom, is the site director of the New York branch of National Justice for Our Neighbors, a ministry of the United Methodist Church that provides programs for immigrants. He is also studying for a Master of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary in New York. [link]

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Rihanna Asked to Leave Mosque in Abu Dhabi

ARTS BEAT | NYT
By Dave Itzkoff

Rihanna posed for a photo in front of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

ABU DHABI---Rihanna was asked to leave the site of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi after posing for photographs there over the weekend that the shrine’s overseers said had violated the “sanctity” of the site. In photos that Rihanna posted on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, she is seen posing at the mosque site, in the United Arab Emirates capital city. Though she is fully covered in the photographs, with only her face, hands and painted fingernails visible in some of the shots, these images drew some negative responses from online commenters, like one who responded with an obscene word, adding: “Leave our holy place and keep your filth away from it. We don’t need you.” [link]

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Politics Threatens to Shake Up Tradition in Nazareth Where Jesus Grew Up

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Isabel Kershner

Much of Nazareth’s economy depends on tourism generated by its Christian past.

ISRAEL---Ramiz Jaraisi has been the mayor of this bustling Arab city in northern Israel for nearly 20 years. For 20 years before that, he served as deputy mayor. The local party slate he heads, the Nazareth Democratic Front, a coalition of the Communist Party and other groups, has been running the city since 1975. There is a lot to be said for tradition and continuity in a city revered by Christians as the childhood home of Jesus. Though the city’s population of 80,000 is now about 70 percent Muslim, much of the economy of Nazareth, considered the capital of Israel’s Arab minority, depends on the tourism generated by its Christian past. [link]

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10,000 Relics Transform Small California Buddhist Temple

BISMARCK TRIBUNE
By John Rogerts

Dharma Master YongHua displays a bottle containing aromatic shariras, part of the temple collection of Buddhist relics

CALIFORNIA---Although he'd been a practicing Buddhist for 20 years, until 10 months ago Dharma Master YongHua hadn't even seen so much as one of the sacred relics known as shariras that are so important to his faith. So it came as quite a surprise to the modest, soft-spoken monk when he learned he was becoming the caretaker of more than 10,000 of them. YongHua's modest Lu Mountain Temple became a repository for the thousands of colorful crystals, two teeth and a single hair that are believed to have come from the body of the Buddha himself. A congregant offered up the collection that he'd painstakingly gathered for years. [link]

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Qatar Inspires Pilgrims for Hajj and for Damien Hirst

Condé Nast Traveler
By Susan Hack

COURTESY QATAR MUSEUMS AUTHORITY

Eyes are on the Middle East this week as the Hajj—the holy pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken by Muslims from all over the world—hits its peak. Interestingly, the religious event is coinciding with an art peak in the region as well, some of it insipired by the Hajj itself. This week, Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art launched an exhibition exploring the history and rituals behind the holy journey and nearby, you'll find the world's largest Damian Hirst retrospective and shows by international artists Mahmoud Obaidi and Francesco Vezzoli. [link]

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Asian Pavilion at Dutch Nat'l Museum Opens With Buddhist Ritual

GLOBAL POST

NETHERLANDS---The Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of the Netherlands, held an inauguration ceremony for its Asian Pavilion on Sunday with 11 priests from a famous Japanese temple carrying out a Buddhist ritual for the two 14th-century wooden statues from Japan to be displayed as the centerpiece of the pavilion. "It is the first time in history for priests from the temple to carry out the ceremony of inauguration overseas," Menno Fitski, curator of the Asian Art department, told the audience at the ceremony held for the official opening of the pavilion at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. [link]

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Qatar Explores Journey to Hajj Through Art Exhibition

ALARABIYA

The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the British Museum,
shows more than 100 objects, including photographs. (Reuters)

QATAR---Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art recently launched a hajj exhibition to coincide with the Muslims holy pilgrimage to the Saudi Arabian city of Makkah. The exhibition explores history of the pilgrimage or hajj, focusing on the routes taken by pilgrims and the rituals of hajj as depicted through art. The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the British Museum, shows more than 100 objects, including photographs, videos, books, manuscripts and other historic artifacts, some of which have never been seen in public before. [link]

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Religious Art Tours Expand to African American Churches

STAR NEWS
By Ben Steelman

St. Stephen church, Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church and First Missionary Baptist Church are on the Religious Art Walking Tour Oct. 12 and 19. Photos by Amanda Greene, Wilmington Faith and Values

NORTH CAROLINA---Wilmington's Religious Art Walking Tours are expanding their focus to include historic African-American churches. The first two-hour session begins 9 a.m. Saturday at St. Stephen A.M.E. Church, 501 Red Cross St. A second tour will be at 9 a.m. Oct. 19 at the same location. Five churches are on the program: St. Stephen, First Missionary Baptist Church, St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church and St. Luke A.M.E. Zion Church. Each of the five congregations formed shortly after the Civil War, said tour guide Amanda Greene, editor for the religious news website Wilmington Faith & Values, which conducts the event.[link]

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