North American Martyrs Chapel
Oscawanna Lake Road
Putnam Valley, NY 10579
845-528-6433
Eight French Jesuits, the most famous of whom was St. Isaac Jogues, were martyred while spreading Christianity in North America and Canada.
In 1936, Msgr. Patrick A. O'Leary from Ireland, who had studied the Jesuits, wanted to build a chapel in their honor. He chose to build it in the shape of an Iroquois long house.
Outside the barrel shaped chapel, alongside the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary translated into Iroquoian, are Indian plaques and carvings.
Inside the church along with a painting of the Crucifixion are traditional North American Indian motifs stenciled along the walls. Pews are rough hewn wood. The overhead lamps are shaped like Iroquois food storage pots. The altarpiece is made of logs, shaped like stockade with the pickets arranged like organ pipes. The altar light rests in a two-foot-long replica of an Iroquois canoe. Stations of the Cross are painted on an Iroquois drumhead.
The church is maintained by parishioners of St. Columbanus Parish in nearby Cortland Manor.
The church may be open Sunday for Mass.
|
|
