Virginia’s Outdoor Cathedral Marks 100 Years

Tucked in the mountains on the Western edge of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is a mother church that claims to have the highest ceiling in the world—a cathedral built of stone at a time when the Diocese of Virginia was uniquely low church, according to historians.

The Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration is the country’s only open-air Episcopal cathedral. Those who formed the shrine, stone by stone, used horse power and their own hands to lift the material from the surrounding woods at the base of North Mountain.