wfn.org | Opening of UCC chapel highlights history

[powellb@ucc.org]

May 12, 2000
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
(216) 736-2222
Hans Holznagel, press contact
(216) 736-3863
holznagh@ucc.org
On the web: <http://www.ucc.org>

Opening of United Church chapel to highlight
history of denomination and City of Cleveland

     CLEVELAND -- Recent renovations have
transformed the look and purpose of 700 Prospect Avenue.
On May 19, the United Church of Christ, whose national
offices are housed in the building, will celebrate those
changes -- not only by dedicating the new, but by
commemorating the old.
     The dedication of Amistad Chapel, a
4,800-square-foot worship center on the lobby level of the
UCC's national offices, will begin at 2 p.m.  Bernice
Powell Jackson, Executive Minister-Elect of Justice and
Witness Ministries, will officiate along with the Rev. John
H. Thomas, President of the United Church of Christ.  The
ribbon-cutting ceremony will be preceded by an open
house and tours of the national offices for UCC staff
members, invited guests and the media from 11 a.m. to
1:45 p.m.
     The chapel will add a spiritual space to a place
which houses much of the business and technical works of
the denomination.  "The work of the church may be
accomplished with computers and telephones, meetings
and conference calls, but those who do the work are
nourished by Word and Table, and the daily opportunity to
gather for prayer," said Thomas.
     While introducing the new worship space will be
the centerpiece of the festivities,
the UCC and the City of Cleveland will be celebrating two
other building-related events.  The year 2000 marks the
100th birthday of 700 Prospect, once known as the Electric
Building.  The date also is the 10-year anniversary of the
UCC's national office move from New York City to what
was then the Ohio Bell Building in downtown Cleveland.
The 110,000-square-foot building, whose first main tenant
was the Cuyahoga Telephone Company, was completed at
a cost of $125,000 in 1900 and was designed by George
Francis Hammond.
     The structure's 100-year history of being a center of
communication continues with the addition of the Amistad
Chapel, a space that the United Church Board for
Homeland Ministries -- the U.S. mission arm of the church
-- envisioned would be "an oasis of Christian service and
witness," said the Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Dipko, executive
vice president of the Board.  The chapel was designed by
members of the Fellowship of UCC Architects at the
request of Board for Homeland Ministries and the UCC
Executive Council to be "a person-centered environment
that seeks to build relationship," said Dipko.
     "For 10 years the United Church of Christ, in the
core city of Cleveland, has sought to offer a place of
ministry in support of the life of the denomination as it
seeks to serve others.  With a renewed and more
welcoming lobby and the worship space of Amistad
Chapel, 700 Prospect Avenue is now more ready to become
the Church House of the UCC," Dipko said.
     The Homeland Board presented the $1.5-million
worship center to the UCC as a gift at the denomination's
biennial General Synod, held last summer in Providence,
R.I.  Among the UCC dignitaries present May 19 will be
the Executive Committee of the Homeland Board.
     The Board requested that the chapel be named in
honor of the African captives who, in 1839, were taken
aboard the cargo ship Amistad.  The Africans revolted
while aboard and took control of the vessel, but were
captured and brought to trial in America. Christian
abolitionists, including the forerunners of the UCC's
American Missionary Association, supported the captives'
bid for freedom and, in a landmark 1841 U.S. Supreme
Court decision, the Amistad captives were declared free.
     The UCC has part of its justice and witness roots in
the Amistad event and, in tribute to that history, the United
Church Board requested that the chapel be so named.  To
further commemorate the historical connection,  a Paschal
candle stand, communion table and processional cross
were commissioned to be made of Iroko wood, a product of
the captive's homeland of Sierra Leone in West Africa.
     The concept behind the transformation of the
UCC's national office building was to create a "church
house" -- an open place of worship and learning where
visitors and guests could find a welcoming place to pray, to
meet and to build fellowship, said Dipko.  The design of
the worship space reinforces that quality of openness, with
two main walls made of glass and a glass-ringed ceiling
suspended over the sanctuary.  Views from Prospect
Avenue are unobstructed, allowing passers-by to see
through the sanctuary and into a courtyard, located between
the building and the Radisson Hotel at Gateway.
     "The chapel will be a visible sign to those of us
who work at 700 Prospect, and to those who walk by on the
street, that worship is at the heart of our life," said Thomas.
     Ten years ago, when the United Church of Christ
moved its offices from New York, Gateway did not exist.
Prospect Avenue was not the hub of activity in a thriving
downtown business corridor.  A lot has changed in
Cleveland during those 10 years, and the building has seen
even more changes since its construction 100 years ago.
On May 19th, the United Church of Christ will celebrate
the history and the future of its "church house."
     Dipko predicts that the Church House will hold
"great promise for integrating the staff
and institutional functions of the denomination with larger
possibilities for enrichment, witness and growth."
     For more information on the day's events and a
schedule of activities, please contact Hans Holznagel,
United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, at (216)
736-3863.
     The United Church of Christ has nearly 6,000 local
congregations in the United States and Puerto Rico.  It was
formed by the 1957 union of the Congregational Christian
Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
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