Swedenborg Foundation Publishers
Tiffany’s Swedenborgian Angels
Stained Glass Windows Representing the Seven Churches from the Book of Revelation
1st Edition
Distributed for Swedenborg Foundation Publishers
Tiffany’s Swedenborgian Angels
Stained Glass Windows Representing the Seven Churches from the Book of Revelation
1st Edition
In 2001, a Swedenborgian minister found a set of seven magnificent stained-glass windows stored in old crates in a barn in rural Pennsylvania. Their story illuminates a fascinating facet of American art history as well as an important set of spiritual teachings.
In 1902, a Swedenborgian church in Glendale, Ohio, commissioned the seven windows as a gift for their sister church in Cincinnati. Each window depicts an angel that represents one of the seven churches described in the book of Revelation. The windows were designed and created in the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and they reflect not only the rich symbolism found in the Bible, but Tiffany’s hallmark color and brilliance. Tiffany’s love of revealing angels in stained glass shines through in every panel.
After their original home was torn down in 1964, the windows were put into storage, only to be rediscovered and painstakingly restored years later. Now a traveling exhibition, the seven angels have been given a new life as shining examples of Tiffany’s art and as a focus for spiritual reflection and meditation.
Tiffany’s Swedenborgian Angels guides the reader not only through the history of the windows, but the spiritual meaning of each one, weaving Swedenborg’s teachings with the luminous imagery of the angels themselves. If you have seen the exhibition, the book allows you to revisit the windows again any time; if you have not, it is a powerful introduction to a vivid piece of spiritual history.
104 pages | 6 x 11 | © 2011
Art: Art--General Studies
History: General History
Religion: Christianity
Excerpt
From a Swedenborgian perspective, then, the Bible could be read as an allegory describing the spiritual regeneration of the human being. For example, some biblical scholars have regarded the seven stars and seven lampstands of the book of Revelation as symbolic of the seven stages of the Christian church. Swedenborg, however, sees the seven churches as representing either types of people or individuals who are practicing Christians with the capacity to work on their faults and become a part of the New Church (the new spiritual age that is predicted in Revelation). Swedenborg sees in each of the seven types strengths and flaws in belief and practice; thus, each “church” represents a part of the entirety of the New Jerusalem, the modern dispensation of true enlightenment. Each angel represented in the windows is the apotheosis of a regenerated Christian, a person who, according to the epistle to his or her church, overcame faults and remained true to the highest good that the church represents. The angel of each church represents a type of individual and also a stage of spiritual growth, reminding us of the paradox that we are loved by God just the way we are and yet are called into greater spiritual development to become the most heavenly person that we choose to be.