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.jpg) The Chapel of the Holy Cross is an architectural and spiritual treasure of Sedona. Built on a magnificent red rock perch and offering vistas of Sedona's most breathtaking landscape, this house of worship has drawn countless people from all over the world since the 1950s. Today it is one of the most popular destinations for visitors of the Sedona area. Those who expect to find the Chapel as just another charming site are often surprised to find themselves embued by the powerful spirituality emanating from this plain yet beautiful building that seems to have stepped forth right out of Sedona's dramatic red rocks..
The first concept for the Chapel of the Holy Cross came to Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a sculptor and informal student of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1932 in New York City while admiring the newly constructed Empire State Building. Looking at this magnificent structure, Marguerite envisioned a cross imposing itself through the very core of the structure. Deeply inspired by this vision in the busy streets of New York City, she went to work designing a chapel with a cross as the main structural element. She then traveled throughout Europe looking for the ideal location for her chapel. A plot was decided upon along the Danube River in Budapest, but the increasing probability of war in the late 1930s caused her to abandon the project.
Marguerite returned to the United States, and on a visit to Sedona, she was completely taken by the awesome beauty of the area and decided that this chapel should be built here. The Chapel of the Holy Cross was finally erected on a twin pinnacled spur of red rocks about 250 feet high, jutting out of a thousand foot red rock wall. It forms a framed cross, enclosed by four grand windows looking out over Sedona´s red rocks. Scarcely a church in the world offers a more inspiring view, and Marguerite Brunswig Staude´s intentions – to build "a monument to faith, but a spiritual fortress so charged with God, that it spurs man's spirit godward" - were thus fulfilled.
The building of the Chapel was completed in April 1956. Witnesses say the physical construction of the building on soft sandstone rock was a miracle in itself - all impossibilities and difficult conditions were simply overcome. The American Institute of Architects endowed the Chapel of the Holy Cross with its Award of Honor in 1957.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and Saint John Vianney Parish of Sedona, Arizona, welcomes all visitors to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. As Marguerite Brunswig Staude said herself: "Though Catholic in faith, as a work of art the Chapel has a universal appeal. Its doors will ever be open to one and all, regardless of creed, that God may come to life in the souls of all men and be a living reality.”
Directions: From "uptown" Sedona, take 179 south toward the Village of Oak Creek for 3.1 miles. Turn left on Chapel Road. The Chapel of the Holy Cross is at the end of Chapel Road
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