Stained glass conveys message at Lauralton Hall

Posted on Sep 26, 2006

By Pamela McLoughlin, New Haven Register Staff

Reprinted from the New Haven Register, September 26, 2006

MILFORD - Linda Lyon taught theology at Lauralton Hall for 25 years, but until Monday when she returned by special invitation, never once gushed at the sight of the front door panels of the school’s mansion building.

"They’re absolutely gorgeous,” Lyon said, bringing her hands to her cheeks.

The center portion of the doors, once plain glass, were officially unveiled Monday to reveal richly-colored stained glass depicting God as a big white circle, the Holy Spirit, a Mercy Cross - the school was founded by the Sisters of Mercy - a chalice, and a row of sea glass picked up on the beach by the Rev. Robert Terentieff.

Terentieff, pastor of St. Gabriel’s Church in the Walnut Beach area and now a teacher at Lauralton, as well as its new chaplain, designed the windows as he has around the country and the world as a priest who also is an artist. He designed the windows before he started working at Lauralton, gathering his crew of volunteers as he often does, from those whose paths cross with his in the stained-glass world, regardless of their religion.

Among the nine or so folks who did the time-consuming, precise, meticulous work of cutting the glass, grinding and copper coating were a Protestant and a Muslim.

“He’s the artist and we’re the technicians,” said Jane Hoover, a Protestant who lives near St. Gabe’s and met Terentieff when she stopped to admire a stained-glass window he had designed at the church. They got talking, he designed a window for her house, and as “payback,” Hoover said, she’s joined his informal work crew, although she remains steadfastly Protestant.

“It’s addicting; it’s so much fun,” Hoover said of the hobby.

The windows, as well as the technicians were blessed by the artistic priest before the school’s 450 female students, administrators and special guests. Before the blessing of the windows, Terentieff also blessed and officially dedicated the administration building with its new name, “Mercy Hall,” in honor of the Sisters of Mercy, a change that is part of the school’s centennial celebration.

The stained-glass crew worked throughout the spring and summer and are starting another big job in another area of the mansion, volunteers said.