Coptic 'grail' allusions in the Denver parish of St. Mark

The Church / Seven Candles 1160 Lincoln St Denver‎ CO United States An opportunity arrived to investigate the parish of St. Mark, after its gothic-evoking exterior elements were spotted from the street.  The site is current in use as a club venue called Seven Candles - turned over to the business sometime after 1988 when the building was given over in dispute. [caption id=”attachment_98” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”It’s still much like this, but with a wild dance floor and aerial acrobats”][/caption] The feel of the place is great, particularly if you get there by 8 or 9pm, before it’s packed with people and takes on their mood.  Sushi is served in one of the side rooms until 1am.  The chapel, closed to the public, has an array of symbols that interestingly complement the rest. The chapel sits in the NW corner of the building. The gusset tops form a ring of stained glass panels, alcoves of fleur de lys above a full-moon / disc, and five fronded palms, alternating. Two arches divide the room into three sections. Each arch is compose of reinforced square angles to follow the two slopes if the ceiling. This gives the arches the shape of the Hopi kivas - a square upon a larger square. The eastern wall is three window panels. The centermost bears a gold caped nun with a central white stripe upon her robes.  The stripe is compose of 9 squares, and is ended top and bottom each with a half-square. Her arms stretch out as the crucifix, but hands open to embrace. She smiles. Subtle to the cobalt background panel illumination are rays emergent from her head, high above which is a serif-cross (even arms) in red, evocative of a rose. Beneath her in the panel are two flower-like designs, green and gold. The design is like four pin oak leaves to the diamond corners, the square corner 3-barbed points like fleur de lys. The background surrounding each design and the nun is a vessica, double walled.  The vessicas interlock in a diamond arrangement, the nun’s head centered over one.  In the space of the wall is marks like rain or tears or thorns? These raise up the lower half of the vessica, the top half as garland, and evocative of the Apprentice Pillar. Outside the walls in the background is more oak leaf like pattern - forest like. The entire border of the glass is patchwork of green and gold, red and white.  Most of the panels have a pattern like bark.  Two panels are red outline crosses. The stone wall in which the window panels are set is painted with a tesselation of gold crowns in the spanish style, the glorious light radiating down from them in 9 rays. Vertical bands, floor to ceiling, of gold ivy and crosses - the ivy on green and the crosses on red - separate the crown tesselations. Beneath the cereal window panel is painted a Christian cross, it top truncated by the window above. Painted on the wall to the left, amid a green field holding gold fleur de lys, is an Alpha surrounded by a triangle of black with gold borders. The right, amid the same field and trangle, is an Omega. The Alpha bears the same shape as the Omega except including the ‘lintel’ bar.

On the north wall adjacent to the alpha, and amid its own red field holding gold crosses, is an emblem of St. Mark. It is set upon white with a circle, a scroll bearing the name of St. Mark is surmounted by a winged sphinx. The sphinx bears a lion’s head - full mane, in the Coptic style, surrounded by a halo.  His right paw rests upon an open book. Alas, these last paintings were seemingly not original to the parish’s founding in 1889.  The chapel, dating to the founding, is known as a Chapel of the Holy Comforter and from this photo in 1975, the walls were not covered the patterns and emblems that they do today. Overall, no archeological discovery here – but it seems like someone may have attempted to make prominent the feminine amid the coptic / egyptian garments of ‘St. Mark.’  The builder’s inscription was not evident on the first visit, but given there was something surreally calming about the the dance floor and aerial acrobatics as I looked down from the VIP floor reading my book on grail legends - I’ll look next time I’m there.


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