Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Summer 2013 Issue | Page 23

History of Shrine Mont

Kaelie Jager
Kaelie Jager, a member of St. James’, Leesburg, received an
assignment for her sixth-grade art project to create a work of art
out of items found in nature. “She decided that she would create
a bonfire just like the ones we enjoy while roasting marshmallows
each fall,” said her mom, Robin Jager. “The leaves were amazing
and created the perfect blazing fire.”

In 1922, the Rev. Edmund Lee Woodward, M.D., and his wife,
Frances Gibson Woodward, purchased Tanglewood Cottage
on Great North Mountain in Orkney Springs, Va., from the
Rt. Rev. Robert Atkinson Gibson, the sixth bishop of Virginia.
The Woodwards built a log cabin nearby that became their
residence.

A few years later, Woodward began constructing
the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration, an open-air
cathedral of the Diocese of Virginia. Each stone was pulled
by horse or rolled by local people to the site. A dugout stone
once used by local Indians to grind corn was repurposed
as a baptismal font. On August 6, 1925, the shrine was
consecrated by the Rt. Rev. William Cabell Brown, D.D.,
bishop of Virginia, and dedicated to the memory of Bishop
Gibson. Services are held at the shrine every Sunday, April
through November.

The Woodward property was bequeathed to the
Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. In 1979, Shrine Mont
purchased the Orkney Springs Hotel and the surrounding
1,000 acres of land to use as a diocesan conference center.
The hotel’s two-story, 50-room Maryland House was built in
the early 1850s. According to legend, Confederate soldiers
recuperated here during the Civil War. The Virginia House,
a four-story white clapboard structure with tall greenshuttered windows, was built in 1873 as the main facility. It
was restored in 1987 and includes a ball room, dining hall
and numerous meeting rooms. t

Maria Gullickson
These watercolor paintings, by Maria Gullickson of St. Thomas’,
Richmond, depict a view of Maryland House across the Lower Pond
(above), as well as the Shrine itself (left).

Summer 2013 / Virginia Episcopalian

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