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The only meetinghouse with an Angel Moroni on top was sold in 1977.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had opened a magnificent new temple just outside Washington, D.C., in 1974. That made expendable the chapel that served as its first iconic building in the seat of the federal government.
The church sold the beloved Washington Chapel to Columbia Road Recording Studios for $300,000, the Washington Post reported.
In an odd twist, Columbia Road resold the chapel later the same day for $475,000 to the Unification Church, popularly but crassly known then as the Moonies.
Nearly 50 years later, a chapel that remains dear to many Latter-day Saint hearts may change hands again, but a little band of holdouts hopes to block the deal.
Hanging in the balance are nine striking stained glass windows — several with specific images related to the Latter-day Saints — and a colorful mosaic above an entrance that depicts Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives.
A developer is in talks with the Unification Church to convert the chapel into an apartment building. The developer has filed some plans and met with the D.C. Office of Planning’s Historic Preservation Review Board, because the chapel is listed as a landmark on both the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic Places.
A small group of Unification Church followers is trying to stop the sale, and local Latter-day Saints are asking the preservation board to require the developer to maintain some of the chapel’s distinctive features, some of which match the Salt Lake Temple.
The building has additional historic value because two of Brigham Young’s grandsons worked on it. Don Carlos Young Jr. was one of the architects. Mahonri Sharp Young created the mosaic.
President Russell M. Nelson served in the chapel’s bishopric in the 1950s while serving as a young medical officer at Walter Reed Army Hospital, according to Page Johnson, who is writing a book about the building’s architectural and historical significance.
Why the chapel was built and had an Angel Moroni statue
To say Washington, D.C., was unfriendly to Latter-day Saints in the late 1800s would be a major understatement. Congress disincorporated the church and confiscated all the church’s property worth more than $50,000. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld those seizures.
Change came slowly in the early 1900s, after the church stopped teaching polygamy. Last week in this newsletter, the Deseret News reported how President Theodore Roosevelt’s kindness to Sen. Reed Smoot’s wife, Alpha Smoot, in 1907 began to change the perception of Latter-day Saints in the capital city.
Sen. Smoot, who was a Latter-day Saint apostle, was part of the church leadership that determined that the city needed an important building to introduce residents to the Latter-day Saints.
“We have purchased the best corner in Washington,” Elder Smoot wrote to a friend. “It cost the church $54,000. I expect the church to put up a magnificent building here, one that will be not only an honor to the church but to Washington as well,” he concluded, according to a guest post by Reed Russell on the blog “Keepapitchinin.”
In the middle of the Great Depression, the Latter-day Saints built what many have called a miniature version of the Salt Lake Temple.
Teams quarried unusual bird’s-eye marble in Utah, dragged it by horse out of Spanish Fork Canyon and shipped it east by railroad, according to a 1974 Ensign article.
Workers topped the Washington Chapel with a statue of the Angel Moroni and added a 5,000-pipe organ below stained-glass windows depicting church theology and history, such as an ancient Book of Mormon-era temple.
It made a striking impression in an important part of D.C. Its tower, modeled after the six Salt Lake Temple towers, stood across the street from two other important church steeples, the National Baptist Memorial Church and All Souls Church Unitarian.
“Your little church going up right there in the middle of the rest of them, makes people stop and think,” one man said, according to the Ensign. “People will soon get over any idea they may have of Latter-day Saints being an obscure, mysterious far-Western sect.”
Holdouts accused of squatting
The Latter-day Saints opened the chapel in 1933. They gathered for one last meeting there 50 years ago this month, on Aug. 31, 1975, the Deseret News reported.
The statue of Moroni was removed and now stands in the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City.
By then, the chapel was already in need of repairs. The special marble exterior suffers in the Washington humidity. Half a century later, the building needs much more work. Broken windows go unrepaired.
“We’re trying,” the Rev. Henry Mungai, chairman of the local building committee, told the Deseret News last week during an interview inside the chapel.
He and others are also trying to block the sale.
“The process under which it is being sold is fraudulent,” he said because his group believes the law protects the rights of a local congregation from a church leadership he described as splintered since the 2012 death of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church’s founder.
The Rev. Mungai and his little band have offered to buy the chapel from Unification Church headquarters. The last time they inquired about the price, they were told it was between $6 million and $7 million, funds they would have to raise.
“It’s historic for the Latter-day Saints, and it’s historic to us,” the Rev. Mungai said.
“The Latter-day Saint spiritual interest in this building is beyond our understanding,” said the group’s senior pastor, the Rev. Jean-Pierre Sonna. “People continue to come here for tours and say they found their belief here, were baptized here. It’s a symbol of God’s presence in America.”
The local group has put up a sign on the side of the chapel that says, “Stop the Illegal Sale of TP’s Properties. Protect This Church.”
TP stands for True Parents — the late Rev. Moon and his wife. The Rev. Moon once declared the chapel would remain forever in the hands of the Unification Church, the Rev. Mungai said.
“To allow it to be sold and changed into an apartment building is like dancing on the grave of Rev. Moon,” the Rev. Mungai said.
Leaders feel differently at the headquarters of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which also uses the names Family Federation for World Peace and Unification and Unification Church.
The chapel served as a meaningful spiritual home for decades, but the Unification Church has decided to sell it as part of its long-term mission strategy, property manager Randall Francis said in an email to the Deseret News. Local members were asked to join other congregations in the region.
“Most of the members left to attend services at other locations but a small group refused to leave claiming they have the right to remain there until the end of time,” Francis said. “Occupying the building without the authorization of the Unification Church leadership places them and others at risk and is not an appropriate form of protest.”
Earlier this year, a judge ruled that more than half a dozen people who had been living in the building had to leave, which they did by June 30, the Rev. Mungai said.
The two sides said they will continue to pursue a legal resolution.
Developer’s plans don’t mention the stained-glass windows or mosaic
Dila Development’s initial submissions to the Historic Preservation Review Board in the D.C. Office of Planning do not include any plans for preserving the stained-glass windows or mosaic.
Those will come later, they say.
So far the plans filed with the city cover only an annex to be built in the chapel’s parking lot. Eventually, the goal is to sell 69 luxury condos in the annex and the meetinghouse itself while reserving 2,000 square feet of community space inside a restored chapel, according to a report by Fox Homes. Dila would offer the space rent-free to local nonprofits.
“The applicant has only developed the project at a very preliminary stage, focusing on the design of the proposed addition,” the Office of Planning told the Deseret News in an email. “The preservation plan for the church building and specific treatments for windows and other features has not yet been developed.”
Dila’s first submission proposed a nine-story apartment building adjacent to the church, but the review board said it was incompatible with the chapel because it would overwhelm the view of the historic tower.
Dila returned with plans for a six-story apartment annex during a meeting on July 24.
“The Board found the general height and massing of the addition to be compatible with the landmark but asked that the architect continue working on the design of the windows, the materials and how the apartment addition would physically connect to the church,” the Office of Planning said.
Dila’s paperwork says it would like to break ground on the project in January and complete it by 2028.
First, it still must complete the sale — which will require a resolution of the Unification Church standoff — and win approval from the preservation review board.
Latter-day Saints hope the building’s artworks remain public. More than a dozen have sent letters to the Historic Preservation Review Board.
“If it is sold, I hope it remains accessible for public viewing, and if possible, for public use,” Johnson, the author writing about the chapel, wrote to the review board.
“Please ensure that the future inhabitants of the city can appreciate this beauty and this history well into the future,” wrote Lindsay Irvine of Arlington, Virginia. “Showcasing this building well within a site redevelopment can help the neighborhood remember the past even as we push forward into new memories and histories.”
Dila Development did not return messages seeking comment.
The plans for the proposed project can be found here.
About the church
- Elder Gerrit W. Gong traveled to Istanbul, Türkiye, and spoke to the Religions for Peace World Council about three ways global faith leaders can act on AI-centered issues. He said AI should involve faith, ethics and human dignity.
- Elder Patrick Kearon spoke at a BYU-Pathway Worldwide devotional. He said, light does overcome darkness and that “You belong in the Light of Christ.”
- Take a look at the church’s new online resources about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon translation and plural marriage.
- Church leadership announced the open house and dedication dates in November for the Alabang Philippines Temple.
- Leaders and members broke ground last weekend for the construction of the Wellington New Zealand Temple.
- Friday marked a big day at church headquarters as several leadership changes took place. An outgoing Young Men general presidency posted their final testimonies on social media, and a new presidency took office. Five General Authority Seventies took on emeritus status while 16 new General Authority Seventies took office. Changes were made to many of the church’s areas and area presidencies.
- Church donations will benefit more than 18,000 students in Central America.
What I’m reading
- Here’s a look at what BYU leaders, coaches and athletic directors have said about the university’s honor code.
- Religion at the office? A new memo from the U.S. president encourages religious identity at work.
- Two Latter-day Saint runners — Kenneth Rooks and Lexy Halladay-Lowry won the men’s and women’s U.S. championships in the steeplechase.
- I’m excited by the news that a woman will umpire a Major League Baseball game for the first time this weekend. Here’s a story on the trailblazing Jen Pawol.