50-673: The Evans Memorial Chapel (often simply Evans Chapel ) is an historic chapel on the campus of the University of Denver in Colorado . It is the oldest continuously-used building for religious purposes in Denver . Completed in 1878, the Evans Memorial Chapel was built with patronage by John Evans in honor of his daughter Josephine . Evans was governor of the Colorado Territory and
100-486: A National Historic Landmark in 1988. It currently hosts Masses for Catholic university students and ecumenical events. In 2014, the chapel was reported to average 53 weddings a year, though weddings in the Evans Chapel were halted until 2023 during renovations. The Evans Memorial Chapel is a relatively small structure with an exterior of rusticated Colorado red sandstone . The chapel's congregation rapidly outgrew
150-433: A parish church . The earliest Christian places of worship are now often referred to as chapels, as they were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building. Most larger churches had one or more secondary altars which, if they occupied a distinct space, would often be called a chapel. In Russian Orthodox tradition, the chapels were built underneath city gates, where most people could visit them;
200-508: A Pennsylvanian bishop, dedicated the Evans Memorial Chapel on 10 October that year. The chapel, on West 13th and Bannock in Denver near the original location of Trinity Church, was one of five Methodist churches in downtown Denver , all of which experienced significant growth before 1890. Many Denver leaders attended the chapel for their worship during this period. Elizabeth Iliff, widow of John Wesley Iliff , would use her husband's estate to fund
250-576: A famous example is the Iberian Chapel . Although chapels frequently refer to Christian places of worship, they are also found in Jewish synagogues and do not necessarily denote a specific denomination. In England—where the Church of England is established by law— interdenominational or interfaith chapels in such institutions may be consecrated by the local Anglican bishop. Chapels that are not affiliated with
300-604: A founder of the Colorado Seminary (now the University of Denver ). Once part of Grace Church, a prominent Methodist Episcopal congregation on 13th Avenue and Bannock in downtown Denver , the small Gothic Revival chapel was moved to the University of Denver's campus in 1959. It reopened there in April 1960, and is now the campus's oldest building. It currently serves as an interdenominational chapel and wedding venue. John Evans ,
350-466: A hospital or university chapel). Chapels that are built as part of a larger church are holy areas set aside for some specific use or purpose: for instance, many cathedrals and large churches have a " Lady chapel " in the apse, dedicated to the Virgin Mary ; parish churches may have such a Lady chapel in a side aisle or a "chapel of Reservation" or " Blessed Sacrament chapel" where the consecrated bread of
400-654: A military or commercial ship. Third, chapels are small places of worship, built as satellite sites by a church or monastery, for example in remote areas; these are often called a chapel of ease . A feature of all these types is that often no clergy were permanently resident or specifically attached to the chapel. For historical reasons, chapel is also often the term used by independent or nonconformist denominations for their places of worship in England and especially in Wales, even where they are large and in practice they operate as
450-406: A particular denomination are commonly encountered as part of a non-religious institution such as a hospital, airport, university or prison. Many military installations have chapels for the use of military personnel, normally under the leadership of a military chaplain . The earliest Christian places of worship were not dedicated buildings but rather a dedicated chamber within a building, such as
500-612: A popular orator and developed a positive opinion of the city; Simpson would hold a stake in Denver real estate development at his death in 1884. Henry A. Buchtel , who would later become chancellor of the University of Denver and state governor of Colorado , was a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church and was made the pastor of Evans Chapel in 1886. Buchtel's talents there soon earned him the more prestigious pastoral position at Lawerence Street Church. Another minister, former Indiana congressman Gilbert De La Matyr , became
550-490: A room in an individual's home. Here, one or two people could pray without being part of a communion or congregation. People who like to use chapels may find it peaceful and relaxing to be away from the stress of life, without other people moving around them. The word chapel , like the associated word chaplain , is ultimately derived from Latin . More specifically, the word is derived from a relic of Saint Martin of Tours : traditional stories about Martin relate that while he
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#1733105629203600-561: A son of its founder, John Evans , and a trustee of the university, to place the institution's funding on a firmer foundation by organizing a series of fundraising campaigns and establishing an endowment for the school. Reviewing these efforts on behalf of the university, the Denver Post noted in 1924 that: In twenty years under Dr. Buchtel's guidance, $ 1,750,000 was raised on his personal appeal for its development and it stands today backed by 20,000 subscribers . . . In September 1906, after
650-574: Is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common type of these. Second, a chapel is a place of worship, sometimes interfaith , that is part of a building, complex, or vessel with some other main purpose, such as a school, college, hospital, palace or large aristocratic house, castle, barracks , prison , funeral home , hotel, airport, or
700-605: The Eucharist is kept in reserve between services, for the purpose of taking Holy Communion to the sick and housebound and, in some Christian traditions, for devotional purposes. Common uses of the word chapel today include: The first airport chapel was created in 1951 in Boston for airport workers but grew to include travelers. It was originally Catholic, but chapels today are often multifaith. Henry Augustus Buchtel Henry Augustus Buchtel (September 30, 1847 – October 22, 1924)
750-530: The Republican Party's nominee for governor, Phillip B. Stewart, withdrew from the race, a group of party officials, Franklin Brooks, George Stidger, and John F. Vivian, decided to offer the nomination to Chancellor Buchtel. Before accepting the trio's proposal to fill the vacancy on the ballot, Buchtel requested their promises that he would have absolute independence if elected. With their assurances, Buchtel became
800-525: The United States . Over the next twenty-six years, he served as pastor of congregations in Indiana , Colorado at Evans Chapel and Trinity Church , New York , and New Jersey . During his years as a minister, Henry and Mary had four children: Frost Craft (1875), Emma (1882), Henry Jr. (1896), and Mary (1898). Henry Jr. died in Denver from scarlet fever in 1901. In 1899, Buchtel was chosen as chancellor of
850-463: The University of Denver , officially assuming his duties in January 1900. At that time, the university had debts of around $ 175,000 and faced the possibility of foreclosure on its mortgages. The new chancellor began fundraising immediately, and managed to retire the debts by August 1903 although the university's finances remained precarious for many years afterward. Buchtel worked with William G. Evans, both
900-399: The 1889 expansion, Grace Church, made moving it impractical and it was demolished. The original chapel's size, though comparatively small, made it impossible to transport the chapel in one piece the six miles to its new location; even if electrical lines and traffic lights could be removed, the building's weight of 427 tons was too great for any bridges. A Denver traffic engineer, asserting that
950-632: The Harper Memorial Garden–also known as the Humanities Gardens–used surplus stone from the chapel's relocation and the demolished Grace Church. When the university's larger Buchtel Chapel was lost to a fire in 1983, the Evans Chapel took over many of the destroyed building's duties. The chapel was designated as a City and County of Denver landmark in 1969, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and designated
1000-475: The Methodist Episcopal Church's Colorado Conference territory briefly. Among these appointments was that of the Central Pennsylvania Conference's C. W. Buoy to the Evans Memorial Chapel in 1882. Buoy, the son-in-law of Bishop Simpson, remained only two years, drawing a salary of $ 6,300 (equivalent to $ 213,640 in 2023). During Buoy's appointment, Simpson visited Denver, where he was received as
1050-568: The Republican nominee. He was elected governor of Colorado in November and served one term from 1907 until 1909, while continuing to handle his duties as chancellor. A stroke in September 1920 forced Dr. Buchtel to resign his position as chancellor the following December. Four years later, he suffered another stroke and, within a few days, died at his home in Denver on Wednesday, October 22, 1924. He
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#17331056292031100-555: The cape was called the capella and the priests who said daily Mass in the tent were known as the capellani . From these words, via Old French , we get the names "chapel" and "chaplain". The word also appears in the Irish language (Gaelic) in the Middle Ages , as Welsh people came with the Norman and Old English invaders to the island of Ireland. While the traditional Irish word for church
1150-452: The celebration of services, particularly the Mass, which is not a parish church. This may be a private chapel, for the use of one person or a select group (a bishop's private chapel, or the chapel of a convent, for instance); a semi-public oratory, which is partially available to the general public (a seminary chapel that welcomes visitors to services, for instance); or a public oratory (for instance,
1200-555: The changing surrounding community after becoming pastor in 1915. Succeeded by George A. Lackland in 1918, further community efforts saw the congregation grow to 1,003 members in 1922. Among the initiatives the church organized was the Colorado Labor College, with labor organizer John R. Lawson as its dean. Later pastors failed to maintain the growth: the church claimed 280 members in 1930 and the Grace Community Center
1250-479: The chapel congregation's leader in 1886 when it numbered 183 members. At his departure in 1889, the congregation had 234 members. De La Matyr had preached a sermon in January 1888 which recognized the need to build more space for the new members. After the sermon was reprinted in the Rocky Mountain News , a new sanctuary was constructed, funded by donations, for $ 85,000 (equivalent to $ 2,882,444 in 2023). It
1300-424: The chapel could not be moved, said "We have enough trouble with chicken coops ." Instead, the chapel was disassembled, pieces marked, and transported once fully dismantled to the university's campus at a cost of $ 80,000 (equivalent to $ 823,937 in 2023). Four months of rebuilding culminated on 22 April 1960 with an "Act of Thanksgiving" and re-dedication ceremony. Fourteen graduating seniors were selected to perform
1350-427: The chapel's appearance and original elements, modifications were made then and over the course of the chapel's lifetime. Among these was the addition and removal of a stage before 1945 and replacement of damaged portions of the stonework. [REDACTED] Media related to Evans Memorial Chapel at Wikimedia Commons Chapel A chapel (from Latin : cappella , a diminutive of cappa , meaning "little cape")
1400-457: The chapel's first pastor while also serving as pastor of St. James. After two years, J. F. McClelland was assigned as pastor, serving in 1880 and 1881 until his poor health forced him out and left University of Denver chancellor David Hastings Moore to fill the vacancy. McClelland's pastorate saw only five people listed as members of the chapel's congregation, including one who was not able to be found and another who reported that he did not know he
1450-492: The dedication, which was attended by 60 United Methodist Church bishops who were in Denver for the General Conference . The chapel was re-established as a "Protestant center on the campus". The area around the relocated Evans Memorial Chapel was converted into a garden for $ 125,000. The funding, granted to the school in 1964, came from Heber Harper , who had been chancellor of the university from 1922 to 1927. Elements of
1500-451: The demolished larger sanctuary. An organ was added in 1965. The chapel's stained glass windows were moved with the rest of the structure to the University of Denver 's campus. Due to aging and poorly executed prior repairs, some stained glass was removed to be restored with repainting and stabilization in 2022. Broken or missing pieces were replaced using the inventory of the restoring firm—the same firm that had been employed to help move
1550-459: The establishment of the Iliff School of Theology as part of University of Denver following his death in 1878. She later met Henry White Warren , an influential Methodist Episcopal bishop and the first resident Methodist bishop of Colorado. Elizabeth, who proved successful in business like her first husband, married Warren in the Evans Chapel on 27 December 1883. Horato S. Hilton was assigned as
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1600-556: The founder in 1870 of Buchtel College (later the University of Akron ). In 1871, Henry's older brother, William, married Helen Barnum, a daughter of P. T. Barnum . He graduated from Indiana Asbury (now DePauw) University in 1872 and was ordained to the Methodist Episcopal ministry. He married Mary Stevenson on February 4, 1873. The couple moved to Bulgaria where they served as missionaries from April until August 1873 when his wife's deteriorating health forced their return to
1650-656: The idea and penned an opinion piece in the Rocky Mountain News entitled "Let's Save the Chapel!" The move was funded by a donation from John Evans, the former president of the university's board of trustees and grandson of the governor John Evans who had sponsored the chapel's original construction, as well as other members of the Evans family. The site selected for the relocation was west of Mary Reed Library on an axis with Mount Blue Sky (formerly known as Mount Evans). The size of
1700-452: The most oft-published Methodist pastor and as a staunch prohibitionist of "gangster sociability". Elmer Ellsworth Higley became a pastor in June 1910. Grace Church's congregation at one point reached 900 members, but had shrunk to 385 by 1912. Bishop White Warren's death that year initiated a period of change for the church and area. Charles O. Thibodeau made efforts to integrate Grace Church into
1750-474: The northern industrial towns of the late 18th and 19th centuries, and centres of population close to but outside the City of London . As a result, "chapel" is sometimes used as an adjective in England and Wales to describe members of such churches: for example in the sentence, "I'm Chapel." While the word chapel is not exclusively limited to Christian terminology, it is most often found in that context. Nonetheless,
1800-535: The property since 1947, in 1958. The university intended to demolish both church buildings to construct parking for the university's law school , which had recently merged with another local law school. Martin Rist, then President of the Rocky Mountain Methodist Historical Society, was informed of the plans and asked the university's chancellor Chester M. Alter to save the chapel. Alter embraced
1850-527: The rise in Nonconformist chapels during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by the time of the 1851 census , more people attended the independent chapels than attended the state religion's Anglican churches. (The Anglican Church does not function as the established church in Scotland.) In Roman Catholic Church canon law, a chapel, technically called an " oratory ", is a building or part thereof dedicated to
1900-441: The size of the building–roughly 40 feet wide, 50 feet long, and 40 feet tall with seating for 64 congregants and a 12 person choir–so the larger, since-demolished Grace Church sanctuary was adjoined. An example of early Gothic Revival architecture , its appearance has been described as "reminiscent of chapels in the west of France." The chapel's single room sits on an east-west axis, terminating in an octagonal apse to
1950-442: The stained glass in 1959. However, it was announced that mismatched pieces would be retained as historic "idiosyncrasies". Additionally, the lead being used in the repairs dates to the same 1880s period as the original windows. The restoration is projected to be completed in 2023. While the move and reconstruction of the Evans Memorial Chapel on the University of Denver's campus included deliberate and constrained efforts to preserve
2000-496: The then-former governor of the Territory of Colorado , had founded both Northwestern University and Colorado Seminary as Methodist Episcopal colleges, the latter eventually becoming the University of Denver. In 1873, Evans contributed funding after being asked to support the construction of a new chapel that had grown out of "Evans Mission Sunday-school" of Lawerence Street Methodist Church (later renamed Trinity Church ) in what
2050-474: The west. A choir is below the east window and the main entrance is found on the southern wall with a small vestibule . On the ceiling are ornate open tracery wood trusses. A 1967 survey by the Colorado Historical Society assessed the building as being in "excellent" condition, though some damaged elements had been recently replaced. Among the replaced portions is a stone cross originally from
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2100-739: The word's meaning can vary by denomination, and non-denominational chapels (sometimes called "meditation rooms") can be found in many hospitals, airports, and even the United Nations headquarters . Chapels can also be found for worship in Judaism . "Chapel" is in particularly common usage in the United Kingdom , and especially in Wales , for Nonconformist places of worship; and in Scotland and Ireland for Roman Catholic churches. In England and Wales, due to
2150-427: Was eaglais (derived from ecclesia ), a new word, séipéal (from cappella ), came into usage. In British history, "chapel" or " meeting house " were formerly the standard designations for church buildings belonging to independent or Nonconformist religious societies and their members. They were particularly associated with the pre-eminence of independent religious practice in rural parts of England and Wales,
2200-498: Was a member. During this period, Evans's pew at the chapel cost him $ 1,400 (equivalent to $ 44,201 in 2023). B. W. Baker was appointed as a minister of the Evans Chapel in 1881 by the local conference's meeting in Leadville ; Moore was formally assigned to the chapel in 1883. It was common in the 19th-century Methodist Episcopal Church to reserve the best church appointments for influential non-local ministers who often only remained in
2250-411: Was an American minister , educator , and public official . He was the seventeenth governor of Colorado . Henry Augustus Buchtel was born near Akron, Ohio on September 30, 1847, the son of Jonathan B. Buchtel, a physician, and Eliza Newcomer Buchtel. Within a couple of years of his birth, his parents relocated their family to Elkhart, Indiana . Henry was a younger cousin of John Richards Buchtel ,
2300-461: Was buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver . In 1988, the Buchtel Bungalow, located at 2100 S. Columbine St. just two blocks east of the University of Denver campus, was listed with the National Register of Historic Places . Finished in the first half of 1906, the house served as Governor Buchtel's residence from 1907 until 1909 and for the remaining years of his life. Today, Buchtel Bungalow
2350-481: Was dedicated in January 1889 with no debt. This larger structure, adjoining the original chapel, was named Grace Church. The 1889 expansion was a red sandstone structure like the chapel, but much larger, with a tall spire . An organ for Grace Church was acquired for $ 10,000 (equivalent to $ 339,111 in 2023). Christian Fichthorne Reisner would become the pastor of the congregation by 1905, serving until 1911. Reisner then moved to Manhattan where he gained attention as
2400-508: Was spun off from the church in 1935. The Grace Church Methodist congregation would move to the Denver neighborhood of University Hills after a final worship service in December 1953. The Evans Chapel and Grace Church were initially sold off to another denomination that worshipped at their original location from 1953 to 1958. The former Grace Church property with the chapel was resold to the University of Denver, which had been looking to purchase
2450-506: Was still a soldier, he cut his military cloak in half to give part to a beggar in need. The other half he wore over his shoulders as a "small cape" ( Latin : cappella ). The beggar, the stories claim, was Christ in disguise, and Martin experienced a conversion of heart, becoming first a monk, then abbot, then bishop. This cape came into the possession of the Frankish kings, and they kept the relic with them as they did battle. The tent which kept
2500-502: Was then southern Denver . The same year, Evans also initiated subscription fundraising for this chapel's construction to honor his late daughter Josephine, who had died of consumption in 1868 at age 24. Josephine had been married to former territorial governor and Colorado Supreme Court justice Samuel Hitt Elbert . After several years of slow subscription collection, the chapel–which cost $ 13,000 (equivalent to $ 410,441 in 2023)–was completed in 1878. Evans's friend Matthew Simpson ,
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