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Greek Orthodox Cathedral
of St.Luke |
Building History The style of the Cathedral is Normandy Gothic, as preferred by its previous owners and inspired by Dunblane Cathedral. Its architect, Jim Sellars, combined tall lancet windows, sturdy turrets and muscular buttresses in a powerful composition which closes the vista from Great Western Road. A flight of steps leads to the entrance in a low arcade which joins the main building to the church hall which accommodates a school for Greek studies and dancing. Once inside, the full power of Sellars' imagination and the present owners' commitment to the building's restoration is revealed in the interiors' marvelous display of Victorian stained glass (by Stephen Adam), the richly stenciled roof timbers and the original light fittings and furniture. Complementing these is a modern iconostasi, by the late George Tombazis, featuring icons of the Eptanesian and Cretan Schools, some of which were painted on Mount Athos in the traditional Byzantine style. Building ArchitectThe Church which is today the Greek
Orthodox Cathedral of St. Luke, was built in 1877 as the Belhaven Church
for a United Presbyterian congregation which met there until 1960. One of
the first members of the congregation was the building's architect, James
Sellars. The great building boom of the 1870s that
ended abruptly with the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878, for
which Sellars had designed one of his finest buildings (Glassford St,
demolished 1959), revived with the building of the City Chambers for which
Sellars twice unsuccessfully submitted designs in the controversial
competitions of 1881 and 1882.
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