Many churches are decorated with stained glass windows, elaborate woodwork, and even ornamental paintings.
However, the Transfiguration of Our Saviour, Greek Orthodox Church in Lowell, Massachusetts has gone above and beyond the customary.
For the last 42 years, one local artist has helped to revive Byzantine mosaics and transformed the church into a work of art.
NHPR Correspondent Hilary McQuilkin reports.
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From outside, the Transfiguration Church is an unassuming yellow brick building at the end of Father Sarantos Way in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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On the inside, however, it’s a different story.
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From eye level all the way to the top of the vaulted ceilings, the church walls are covered in mosaic icons.
Metropolitan Methodios, the Greek Orthodox Bishop of the Metropolis of Boston, once described the Transfiguration Church as "one of the most beautiful churches, if not the most beautiful church, in the entire Archdiocese of North and South America."
The artist is 80-year old Robert J. Andrews of Pembroke, Massachusetts.
CLIP [I’m a mosaic iconographer. That’s what I specialize in. I’ve done it in 23 churches now. Not to this extent, of course.]
Andrews was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, but he grew up in Dover, New Hampshire.
Baptized Rovertos Andrianopoulos, Andrews was raised Greek Orthodox and his parents sent him to a special Greek school for three hours every day.
CLIP [It was tough. At the time, I was like what am I doing this for. We all used to fight it, but I never knew how important it would be to me later on really, to do all my research in the language and to be able to speak with people who don’t speak much English. It’s a good thing.]
After serving in WWII, Andrews attended Massachusetts College of Art.
His work in mosaics did not begin until much later when his hometown church in Dover burned down in the early 1960s.
CLIP [I went to speak with them and suggested why don’t we try mosaics and get a revival of Greek mosaics in this country and none of them had done it up until that point. So, the idea appealed to them and they hired me to do the icons on the icon screens.]
After seeing his work in Dover, the officials at the Transfiguration Church in Lowell asked Andrews to decorate their walls.
So in 1963 Andrews began work.
CLIP [When people walk in here they say, oh wow. Because they just don’t expect to see this expansive work in one location. It’s very unusual. There are very few churches that do this. They wanted to go back to past centuries and bring it into focus in their church. Any of the Greek churches would love to do this, but they don’t all have the opportunity the way these people did. They made up their mind and drove them self do to it. It’s symbolic of what they did many centuries ago.]
In the style of the 11th and 12th centuries, Andrews makes full sized drawings of his icons.
He sends those drawings to a studio in Italy, where according to his color specifications, thumbnail-sized glass tiles are glued, in reverse, into the painting.
After they're shipped back from Italy, Andrews mounts the paper-covered tiles section by section into cemented walls.
He peels off the paper, and the mosaic is revealed.
With nearly 5000 different colors to choose from, Andrews can accomplish most anything.
CLIP [I like gold, we can’t get as much as we used to be able to at the same price. We don’t use as much now as we did in the apse area, uh, but it creates a wonderful feeling of space that colors just don’t do, unless you start getting painterly which I don’t want to do. I work in two dimensions rather than three dimensions.]
Leanna Cheney, art history professor and chair of the department of cultural studies at Umass Lowell, says gold is more than just ornamentation.
CLIP [The gold background becomes sort of a trademark of Byzantine art and there is a greek scholar auto demus talks about gold creating the floating image … it gives you the figure represented is detached from the background, so it’s very suggestive and very emotive and comes down from the heavens with the faithful. …more, but edit down clip]
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CLIP [I’m Father Chris Faustoukas and I’m the pastor here of the church here at Transfiguration. I’m completing my third year studying here.]
Father Faustoukas explains that during the Byzantine Empire, icons were used to help the many illiterate parishioners conceptualize the scripture.
Today, the icons serve much the same purpose: to surround people with constant reminders.
And even Faustoukas has a favorite image:
CLIP [Well, for me, and from where I’m positioned stand when I’m leading the congregation in worship it’s the [something in Greek], Christ coming to judge the world. And so when I look up at certain points, there are certain liturgical gestures I look up and he is the one I see.]
Virginia Kimball is a religious studies professor at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA.
CLIP [As far as I know and the way I understand it, American born, there is no other American born iconographer doing mosaics of his vast, expansive work been done … I would say his understanding, his technique in the Byzantine style is very pure.]
Although Robert J. Andrews has worked all over the United States and even in London, he will always think fondly of the Transfiguration Church in Lowell.
CLIP [This is my most compete work. I love this church. I have an affinity to this church because I started here. My hometown church in Dover was my beginning, but this was my major effort.â€
He's been working on it for 42 years.
And Andrews says he has no intention of stopping his work any time soon.
He plans to follow in his grandmother’s footsteps.
She lived to be 106 years old.
For NHPR news, I’m Hilary McQuilkin.
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