The Cathedral Crawl Won Me Over

Tulsa Foundation For Architecture + Tulsa Opera: Cathedral Crawl
Downtown Tulsa
February 16, 2025

Sometimes, concepts for events make my eyes roll. “The incredible beauty of sacred spaces” is what I’ll “be captivated by,” you say? Let me guess: I’ll “enjoy enchanting performances” while gaining a new appreciation for a “rich architectural heritage,” too. Look, I got an art degree; I’ve heard it all before. 

That said, the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture made me feel several things, all of them good, during its recent Cathedral Crawl tour of downtown churches, in partnership with Tulsa Opera. And while I scoffed at the idea of it being self-guided (“What am I paying for?” I thought), I found as I went that this fact was necessary and vital for the pacing of the thing. I came away from it with, sigh, yes, a newfound appreciation for Tulsa’s beautiful churches and its architectural heritage. 

I’m not exactly a Christian, nor an agnostic, nor an atheist, but some secret fourth thing: a born Christian who deviated harshly and continues said deviation in the direction of Buddhist ideals. Do not under any circumstances tell my grandmother this. I’m not against experiencing a feeling of spiritual rapture, but I have all but given up the idea that I would ever again have such a feeling in a house of Christian worship. 

Irreverent to my irreverent feelings, the churches of downtown Tulsa not only wowed me, they brought me to a state of stunned awe multiple times. Each new intricate stained glass installment found me verklempt at the little tinklings of light on carpet. Churches don’t have to be beautiful; sometimes people have knee-quivering spiritual experiences in former K-Marts. But the work and thought put into these spiritual spaces, where spots an inch wide are inscribed with Biblical heritage, is a testament to how fervently Christians feel about their complex and serious religion. As much as I try to escape Christianity, it is the foundry in which I was formed; the aesthetics of a good church will always appeal to me. 

And aesthetics were there in abundance. Consider the Boston Avenue Methodist Church, whose 250,000-tile mosaic weighs three tons and was flown in from Italy. In the sanctuary, we were lucky enough to see a surreal moment in the history of the church: currently, it stands stuffed with scaffolding as the ceiling undergoes renovation. 

There’s also Holy Family Cathedral, whose massive Gothic Revival altarpiece is one of the finest I’ve seen in any church, and whose sanctuary is bedecked by figurines and stained glass. 

First Presbyterian boasted a wide courtyard and a dark, methodically-thought-out sanctuary (explained in detail to us by a docent). 

The opera, too, was a defining piece of the tour. Throughout the experience, three short opera performances were scheduled inside the sanctuaries of First Methodist Church, First Christian Church, and Holy Family Cathedral; I caught the first two. The high, powerful voices catapulting off of the vaulted ceilings and stained glass exemplified exactly what the tour was meant to convey: spiritual grandeur. 

First Christian’s massive dome was worth the price alone; hearing Christian Bester’s performance under it was a real delight.

First Methodist’s Neo-Gothic architecture was a perfect background to Karlena Riggs’ rendition of Fauré’s Requiem. 

The tour was exactly as long as it needed to be, and having Foolish Things as the check-in point created a natural lure to come back to our little home base and have a coffee snack. (As an aside, it’s wild to me that their kitchen isn’t open on Sunday. Super Secret Donuts, while delicious, are not lunch. Anyway.) Tulsa Foundation for Architecture has events that happen all year round, with incredibly cool-sounding titles like “Brothels, Bootleggers, and Beyond: The Blue Dome District,” and “Cinema, Scandals, & Sliced Bread: Explore Kendall Whittier.” With how affecting this one was, I’ll look forward to attending more.