Tucked in the mountains on the western edge of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is a mother church that claims to have the highest ceiling in the world—a cathedral built of stone at a time when the Diocese of Virginia was uniquely low church, according to historians.
The Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration is the country’s only open-air Episcopal cathedral. Those who formed the shrine, stone by stone, used horsepower and their hands to lift the material from the surrounding woods at the base of North Mountain.
It was consecrated on August 6, 1925, by the Rt. Rev. William Cabell Brown, the seventh Bishop of Virginia. A hundred years later, on the same day, former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and one of Brown’s successors, Bishop Mark Stevenson, led a service to celebrate Cathedral Shrine and the 1,100-acre retreat and conference property that surrounds it, called Shrine Mont. August 6 is also the Feast of the Transfiguration.
“Happy birthday, Shrine Mont, you don’t look a day over 30,” said Curry, who delivered the sermon. For 30 minutes, he spoke about the power of purpose. The church leader, known for his charisma and vivid gestures, stepped out of the lectern to be near the scores of parishioners who took part in the midweek event. The service began a little past 7 p.m., with the sun still up on the summer evening.
“It’s more than fortuitous that those who dreamed this place into being identified it with the transfiguration of Jesus,” Curry said. The feast, which celebrates Jesus’ radical change of appearance, depicts a moment when Peter, James, and John witnessed a vision of Jesus that was transparent, in which they saw the glory of God within him, Curry said, citing theologian Paul Tillich.
“For years, I kind of wondered what were they talking about,” he asked rhetorically, and then pointed to the Father’s words in Luke 9:35: “This is my son, my chosen. Listen to him. Your brother knows something worth listening to,” Curry said, clarifying that it was his paraphrase of how God spoke in the biblical text.
Starting With 12 Acres
Born in Richmond, the Rev. Edmund Lee Woodward was a medical doctor who, after spending a year at Virginia Theological Seminary, served as a medical missionary in China at the urging of the Rt. Rev. Frederick Rogers Graves, Missionary Bishop of Shanghai. Woodward served for almost 10 years and founded the St. James Hospital at Anking. He returned to Virginia in 1908 to complete his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood by his father-in-law, Bishop Robert Gibson of Virginia.
From 1914 to 1921, he served as rector of Whittle Parish, a group of several rural churches that were ravaged and defaced after the Civil War. Grace Church in The Plains, Virginia, was part of his congregation.
“Under his driving enthusiasm and leadership, the present beautiful buildings of Grace Church and parish house at The Plains were erected,” said the journal of the 1948 Annual Council of the Diocese of Virginia. The same document said that “he became one of the leaders of modern development in rural parishes.”
Andrea Sutcliffe of the Mountain Courier newspaper wrote that it was in China where Woodward learned how to build with stone. The current structure of Grace Church, still in use today, benefited from such craftsmanship.
His skills also served him well when he began developing Shrine Mont, which started with 12 acres of land behind a cottage he purchased in 1922. Woodward’s vision laid the foundation for what would become a place where the idea of spiritual formation outside the pews could be realized, and tens of thousands of visitors would gather annually.
Leaders from the diocese and locals of North Mountain would play a significant role in shaping the property into what it is today, and one family—the Moomaws—would leave their mark through their stewardship of Shrine Mont.
“They could not have dreamed what this sacred place would do in generations in their time, yet unborn,” Curry said. “They could not have imagined [the lives] that were touched, changed, and transformed here at Shrine Mont. They could not have known the people that would pass through this way.”
A Place Apart
“They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem,” Curry read from Luke 9:31. The former primate of the Episcopal Church explained that Moses and Elijah weren’t just talking about Jesus leaving.
“They were talking about the work that he would accomplish, the mission that he would do,” Curry said. “They knew that if he understood and was clear about his purpose, who he was, and what he was supposed to do, he could march through hell for a heavenly cause if he had to.” And in his signature voice, Curry exclaimed: “There’s power in your purpose.”
Ray Walker, writing for the Culpeper Star-Exponent, observed that the Dallas Hilton—the first hotel to bear the Hilton name— also opened on August 6, 1925. “Little did those in Dallas know they were being upstaged in cultural significance by a tiny church in rural Virginia,” Walker wrote of the shrine’s consecration.
Built in a natural amphitheatre, the cathedral has a bell tower, a sacristy, a chancel, choir and clergy stalls, a pulpit, a baptismal font, and a lectern. Walker wrote that the font was originally a dugout stone used by Native Americans.
After serving at Whittle Parish, Woodward became dean of the diocesan system of church schools. He retired from the post in 1928 and devoted the remainder of his years to developing the Shrine of the Transfiguration, the heart of Shrine Mont—“a place apart, for spiritual refreshment and growth.”
Woodward and his wife, Frances, are considered the founders of Shrine Mont. They deeded the land to the diocese, including their cottage. On Woodward’s death in February 1948, he was buried beside his wife at the foot of the shrine, to which “they both gave the last and best years of their lives,” the 1948 diocesan journal said. Earlier, Woodward had been appointed the shrine’s pastor for life.
In the year of Woodward’s death, Wilmer E. Moomaw was appointed manager of Shrine Mont; two years later, in 1950, he became director—a role he would hold for decades. During his tenure, the property added new facilities and welcomed more visitors. In 1979, with the approval of Bishop Bruce Hall, Shrine Mont acquired the Orkney Springs Hotel and its 965 acres. Moomaw negotiated the contract.
Three generations of the family have now served as stewards of Shrine Mont, including its current director, Kevin Moomaw—Wilmer’s grandson. During the service, Bishop Stevenson invited members of the Moomaw family to come to the altar.
“This family is a family of saints of God, who have taken their ministry seriously in this place … they have been more than just caretakers,” Stevenson said. “They have been pastors to us all for generations.” He said the diocese owes the family a debt of gratitude and prayed for them as the service concluded.
Kirk Gibson, the great-grandson of Bishop Robert Gibson, is Shrine Mont’s director of development. In March, he and Moomaw shared a letter about a forthcoming capital campaign with the hope of raising at least $12.5 million, which will contribute to bringing the property’s endowment total to $10 million.
A similar campaign for the property—involving the purchase of several cottages—was featured in a February 1929 issue of The Living Church. Together with the $100 the Bishop of Virginia had donated, with a promise he would be at Shrine Mont every summer, and several other gifts, they still needed $8,000 more.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
