The Church of St. John the Baptist, Maadi: Faith and the Arts

“How other future worlds will ripen to God I do not know, but for us art is the way.”
Ranier Maria Rilke, German poet

“Some things lead us into the realm beyond words. Art thaws even the frozen, darkened soul, opening it to lofty spiritual experience. Through Art we are…sent…revelations not to be achieved by rational thought. …It is like that small mirror in the fairy-tales….you glimpse the Inaccessible, [a realm forever beyond reach] where no horse or magic carpet can take you. And [your] soul cries out for it.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist
(from his Nobel Prize speech titled, “The Gift of Art”)

St. John’s Church is committed to exploring and nurturing the relationship between faith and the arts (visual and literary), believing creativity profoundly expresses and illustrates the nature of God, the ultimate Creator. We believe that the arts are the wellsprings of the spiritual journey, with the capacity to take us to that deeper dimension in our pilgrimages toward nearing the heart of God. (Please see a sermon delivered by Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler on the role of the Arts in enhancing Faith titled “Windows on God.”)

Additionally, St. John’s Church proactively focuses on the visual arts and their interplay with faith, to help build bridges of understanding and respect between Christians and Muslims. We seek to develop creative opportunities that highlight Faith and the Arts---holding exhibitions, seminars, lectures, exchanges, serving as a patron, etc., that bring together Christians and Muslims. Our experience in Egypt has shown that the arts serve as one of the most effective mediums to build bridges of friendship and sharing between Christians and Muslims. As we seek to discover together how both faiths express their spiritual journeys through art, both historically and contemporarily, this also enables faith issues to be addressed in a natural context, and allows us together to address the ultimate questions: who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going.

Below are examples of some of the Faith and the Visual Arts initiatives of St. John’s Church.

Opening Night of "On A Caravan" art exhibition

With the belief that the Arts can serve as one of the most effective mediums to build bridges of respect, understanding, sharing and friendship between the Middle East and West, and Muslims and Christians, our Rector, Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler, started Caravan as an informal catalyst encouraging Muslims and Christians to journey together through the Arts…thereby seeing the Arts used to facilitate intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.

The Caravan initiative entails developing creative opportunities that highlight Faith and the Arts that bring together Middle Eastern and Western (and Christian and Muslim) artists….from holding exhibitions, seminars, lectures, exchanges, serving as a patron, etc.

Additionally, through these various art programs, the desire is to also encourage the development of local art (traditional and contemporary) in the Middle East and North Africa.

Within the various programs, there is a charitable component that seeks to serve toward bringing hope and healing to individuals that are in need (economically, socially, physically) within the Middle East and North Africa. Please see www.oncaravan.org to learn about the various major arts initiatives that have taken place through Caravan.

To celebrate the church’s 75th Anniversary, St. John’s decided to install nine new stained glass windows in the church that would focus on the role of Egypt in the Biblical and Qur’anic stories. Artist Debra Balchen was approached by St. John’s Church to both paint oil paintings of these nine scenes, and then to direct and guide their fabrication into stained glass windows with the assistance of Egyptian Muslim artists, Dr. Ahmed Nabil and his son Amr.

Debra Balchen’s completed stained glass windows were installed at St. John’s Church in January 2006 and unveiled at an exhibition of the windows widely attended by those from both Christian and Muslim backgrounds.

Debra Balchen

Painting to Debra Balchen has slowly become a “magnificent obsession”. She started painting 15 years ago when her children were young. During that time she began attending the Art Students’ League in New York for studies in anatomy, drawing, painting and watercolor, and she began studying for a degree at the Academy of Art (San Francisco).

Debra has participated in numerous group exhibitions and has had various solo exhibitions as well.

Additionally, she initiated and taught a “Faces and Figures” course at ROMONA Modern Museum of Art in Kenya, and has held numerous private lessons in Cairo. She has lived in Italy, South Africa, and Kenya and now resides in Egypt. She has also always been interested in glasswork and has taken several courses at Corning Glass, N.Y.

About this project, Debra says, “As an artist I have always secretly longed to do public spaces to take people’s minds away from the everyday preoccupations of life, and what better place to do this than in a church. I have always loved the contemplative beauty of the interior of churches. And with my love for drawing faces and figures, for glass and storytelling, the opportunity to design these stained glass windows has been a special gift.”

Roland Prime, a British sculptor and painter living and working in Cairo, was approached by the church to design a modern sculpture with a spiritual theme to be installed on the St. John’s property using the organ pipes of the church’s recently dismantled historic 1933 Ingram electric organ—in order to preserve the legacy of the beautiful instrument.

From this unique commission, Roland designed a moving sculpture of modern art. Titled Resurrection and symbolic of the sunrise, not only does this work of art remind us of Easter morning, “Resurrection Day”, but also of the religious role that historically the sun has played in ancient Egypt during the pre-Christian and Islamic periods.

Roland Prime

Roland pursued a degree in Fine Art at Canterbury Christ Church College, England. Describing his art he says, “I wanted to be able to see for myself what artistic scope I could discover. I have always worked on numerous projects at the same time be it Painting and Sculpture or Photography.

The many varied jobs I have had to support myself during this process has helped ‘to feed’ my art. So when opportunities arise to work with materials that have already been worked on, as in the organ pipes, I embrace what exists and try to then let that work express itself whilst incorporating it into a new form.

My paintings express the beauty of nature and explore the relationship of Earth and Sky at the horizon line. The compression of light that is caused by the variety of atmospheric conditions, at the moment over the desert. I then proceed to explore this relationship in oil paint on canvas.

My Photography is firmly based in Photo-Realism and records that which is around me. I don’t use it as a mechanism for the other two fields I work in.”

In a post 9-11 atmosphere, St. John’s Church, in their plans to aesthetically beautify the church building (toward enhancing a personal worship experience), decided to do so by creating an opportunity to illustrate how Christians and Muslims can work together and respect one another. In this regard, the Muslim stained glass artist, Salah al Zayat, for Al Azhar Mosque, the intellectual and spiritual hub of Sunni Islam, was commissioned to fabricate two large round “arabesque style” stained glass windows in the design of a cross, to be installed on each side of the church building. The exquisite windows, carved by hand out of white plaster, was the first church commission the Muslim artist had received—and the first cross windows he had designed. Both windows were installed during the week of September 11, 2004, to symbolize how Christians and Muslims can build bridges of love, respect and support between each other.