Funds for Building
Visitors to the Cathedral repeatedly ask when it will be finished. It is impossible to answer this question definitely. Some of the cathedrals of the Old World have been seven hundred years in building and are not yet completed. The things which endure the longest are generally of slow growth,[10] and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is no exception to this rule. It is not a steel-frame structure, but is of massive masonry in the best traditions of Gothic architecture and is being built to stand for ages. Its physical construction must therefore necessarily be slow.
It is to be remembered, also, that the financial resources for the building of a modern cathedral are different from those which supplied the means for building many of the Old World churches. Westminster Abbey was built almost entirely from revenues of the Kings from Henry III. to Henry VII. St. Paul’s in London was partly built by the gifts of penitents who performed their penances in money. Occasionally an ancient shrine grew into a great church in consequence of some tradition or superstition which caused a continuous stream of illustrious persons to shower wealth, privileges and honors upon it. Pope Honorius prescribed collections in all Christendom for the building of Rheims Cathedral. The metropolitan church of St. Rombold’s, in Malines, Belgium, was built with money paid by pilgrims who flocked thither in the 14th and 15th centuries to obtain indulgences issued by Pope Nicholas V.; and the Tour de Beurre (butter tower) of Bourges Cathedral, like the tower of the same name at Rouen, “derives its name from having been erected with money paid for indulgences to eat butter in Lent.” (Baedeker.)
To-day, however, reliance is placed entirely upon voluntary contributions. Some of the larger gifts to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine are mentioned hereafter, but there have been many other large ones and innumerable smaller ones equally acceptable from donors irrespective of denominational affiliations who have caught the civic and patriotic as well as the religious inspiration of what is to be America’s greatest cathedral. In a general way, it may be said that the Cathedral will be finished as fast as funds are provided;—and no faster, for the authorities have rigidly maintained the provision of the statute, building only what can be paid for, and worshippers are therefore not kneeling on any debt. Anyone desiring here to enshrine a loving memory or to embody the offering of a grateful heart may place a donation to the Building Fund in the alms-basin or in the box at the door, or send it to the Dean at the Cathedral offices in the old Synod House, at Amsterdam avenue and 112th street, New York City.