The Great West Window

Except for the over-sized bronze doors, the entire west end of the Cathedral is curtained with a brilliant wall of intricately patterned, hand-blown stained glass by the John Wallis, of the Wallis-Wiley Studio (California). Built with bronze-clad stainless steel vertical and horizontal supports, the window was one of the largest constructed in the late 1950’s in the United States. The Great West Window is divided into three principal areas:

• The depiction of the life of Christ from the Annunciation, beginning at the lower left, and reading upward to his Resurrection and Ascension at the upper left. At the very top of the left panel you will find Jesus on a surfboard! When asked about this, artist Wallis merely smiled.
• The story of the creation of the Church and its evolution in England as the Anglican Church is shown from the upper right, reading down to the horizontal band.
• Continuing below the band is the story of the Anglican and Episcopal Church in Hawaii: the King & Queen and their young son are depicted at the left; Bishop Staley, the first Anglican Bishop in Cope and Mitre; Sanford Dole, President of the Republic of Hawaii and first appointed Governor of the Territory of Hawaii, and Bishop Henry Restarick, the first Episcopal Bishop. In addition, to commemorate its role as an impetus to the completion of the cathedral by having infested the original wood roof, a larger-than-life Termite is visible below Sanford Dole. The center of the window depicts the a risen Jesus, with his hands raised in benediction.

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Sacred Art in Stained Glass

The Cathedral’s West Window has such grand scale and engaging images that visitors sometimes don’t notice, at first, the many other works of sacred art. But those artworks and their dedications tell stories that are perennially moving.

On each side of the nave are six pairs of stained glass memorial windows.  Four sets of windows were designed in England by Clayton and Bell; the last two pairs were designed by John Wallis, the artist who created the Great West Window. He made a deliberate effort to execute them in the style of the ninteenth century, to harmonize with the earlier English windows.

Several windows are of particular historical or sentimental interest.  The fifth pair on the Diamond Head side were dedicated to members of the Hawaiian royal family, one by Queen Liliu'okalani (slide #29), the last monarch of Hawai'i, in memory of her husband, John Owen Dominis, and the other by Alexander Cleghorn for his daughter, Princess Kaiulani (slide #30).  An error preserved for all eternity is the mispelling of the Princess' name as "Kainlani."

Clerestory Windows

Above the High Altar, the central window represents t. Andrew flanked by St. Peter and St. Paul.  At the same level are a series of narrow clerestory windows. In 1958, they were provided with the simple but colorful seas of someof the dioceses of the Church.

On the Ewa or north side, is desplayed the seal of the Diocese of York.  On the Diamond Head or south side, there is a full range of seven windows containing the seals of other dioceses: Canterbury, Wales, Scotland represented by Argyle and the Isles, and North Ireland or Armagh.  Also included are some dioceses bordering on the Pacific: Christ Church New Zealand, British Columbia and Hong Kong.

Moving out to the nave, at the highest level, seldom noticed by the congregation below, the series of narrow clerestory windows continue.  Those on the Diamond Head side begin with the seals of the dioceses of Jerusalem and Honolulu, and include those of dixteen dioceses in the Pacific area.  On the opposite side are seals of eighteen dioceses in the United States.  These windows portray vividly, not only the diversity and unity of the Anglican Communion, but also the support offered the Hawaiian Churchby its fellow members, for some of the windows were provided by the dioceses represented by their seals.