What is permissible in one city is often not in another. Different airports, different rulesĪs these examples show, no two airports have negotiated chapel space in the same way. Pamphlets on topics ranging from grief to forgiveness are available for visitors to take with them at the Charlotte airport. The chapel in Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, has multiple religious texts alongside prayer rugs, rosary beads and artistically rendered quotes from the world’s major religions. Others include religious symbols and objects from a range of religious traditions. The entrance to Our Lady of the Airways Chapel at Logan International Airport today Some airports, such as JFK, continue with their “Our Lady” names, indicating their faith-based origins. ![]() The scene at the Atlanta airport chapel is similar, with only a few chairs and clear glass entrances, to provide space for quiet reflection. A small enclosed space without any religious symbols or obvious connections to things religious or spiritual is available for services. The chapel at San Francisco International Airport, for example, known as the Berman Reflection Room for Jewish philanthropist Henry Berman who was a former president of the San Francisco Airport Commission, looks like a quiet waiting room filled with plants and lines of connected chairs. And many were transformed into spaces for reflection, or meditation for weary travelers. Becoming more inclusiveīy the 1990s and 2000s, single faith chapels had become a “dying breed.” Most started to welcome people from all religions. In the 1970s and 1980s, Protestant chapels opened in Atlanta, and in several terminals of the Dallas airport in Texas. They were later razed and rebuilt in different area of JFK. These chapels were located at a distance from the terminals: Passengers wishing to visit them had to go outside. It was designed in the shape of a Latin cross and was joined by a Jewish synagogue in the 1960s. The first was in New York – again at JFK. This chapel was moved in 1965 to its current location to allow for airport expansion.Īrchives, Archdiocese of Boston, CC BY-NC-ND Kennedy airport in New York City.īlueprints for the original Our Lady of the Airways Chapel. Our Lady of the Airways inspired the building of the country’s second airport chapel, Our Lady of the Skies at what was then Idlewild – and is today John F. “We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us away from all dangers, O glorious and blessed virgin."ĭedication of Our Lady of the Airways Chapel, in its first location at Logan airport, in BostonĪrchive, Archdiocese of Boston, CC BY-NC-ND A neon light pointed to the chapel and souvenir cards handed out at the dedication read, Cushing at Logan airport in 1951 and it was explicitly meant for people working at the airport. The first one in the U.S., Our Lady of the Airways, was built by Boston Archbishop Richard J. ![]() The country’s first airport chapels were intended for staff rather than passengers and were established by Catholic leaders in the 1950s and 1960s to make sure their parishioners could attend mass. My interest in airport chapels started as simple curiosity – why do airports have chapels and who uses them? After visiting a few – including the chapel at Logan, my home airport here in Boston – I have concluded that they reflect broader changing norms around American religion. I am a sociologist of contemporary American religion and have written two recent articles about airport chaplains and chapels. Sixteen of the country’s 20 largest airports have chapels, as do many more around the world. We also believe that God has provided deliverance for those who are oppressed by the enemy of our souls, Satan.Traveling in the new year? It is very likely there is a chapel or meditation room tucked away somewhere in one of the airports you’ll pass through. These gifts include prophecy, gifts of healing and miracles, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, words of knowledge and wisdom and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. We believe that God has provided and equipped the church with all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in order that the church, the body of Christ can be edified and build up in the faith. We are charismatic in our worship and Pentecostal in that we believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today and are active today. We are apostolic in that we are a church who send others out from Faith Chapel and equips and supports them to start new churches or out reaches in the Rochester area as God reveals the need. We are however, linked with other churches for purposes of fellowship and mutual edification of the body of Christ. We are non-denominational in that we are not affiliated with any main-line denomination.
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