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Spokane Cathedral hosting exhibition commemorating centennial of groundbreaking
St. John’s Cathedral celebrates the Centennial of the building’s groundbreaking with a new historical exhibition on Inland Northwest.
By Kyle Marquez | For FāVS News
Five books that once belonged to Spokane tribal member Spokane Garry are at the center of a new exhibition at St. John’s Cathedral marking 100 years since the church broke ground.
“Unto the Ends of the Earth: The Legacy of the Great Commission in the Inland Northwest” traces the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to the region, using the cathedral’s stained glass windows as a guide. It runs through Nov. 14, and admission is free.
The books belonged to Spokane Garry (Slough-Keetcha) and include several Bibles and a psalmody. They were on loan from the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, known as the MAC. The live viewings of Garry’s books have passed, but copies are available for viewing throughout the exhibit.
David Beine, an anthropologist who consulted on the exhibition, researched how the collection left Garry’s hands near the end of his life, after he was pushed off his land, and eventually reached the museum.
“How did they get from Garry into the MAC?” Beine said in a call with FāVS.
The Very Rev. Heather VanDeventer, dean of St. John’s Cathedral, said in a press release that the exhibit is meant to invite reflection.
“The story represented in our stained glass is a story of faith, but it is also a human story,” she wrote. “We want visitors to see the beauty and complexity of that history and to ask thoughtful questions about what it has meant for the people and communities who have lived here.”
Darryl Gurecky, co-chair of the St. John’s Centennial Committee, said the committee built the exhibit around the windows because they already trace that history, and because the windows were made to be used “as stained glass was intended to educate, to tell the story.”
Other highlights include a 1902 panoramic photograph of Spokane from the Library of Congress. It measures about 25 feet long and hangs directly above a modern drone photograph taken from a similar vantage point. The exhibit also features photos of Catholic and Protestant “ladders,” artworks that depict competing versions of biblical history, displayed behind a modern recreation of a ladder.
The exhibition is one of four events leading up to the cathedral’s centennial commemoration in 2029. The series began with a land dedication on Sept. 21, 2025, and continues with the groundbreaking anniversary on Nov. 8, the laying of the cornerstone on June 11, 2028, and the dedication of the cathedral’s nave, its first completed section, on Oct. 21, 2029.
Gurecky said the goal is to look at the windows “again critically, not to demean the history, but to learn in a new way from the history, and to perhaps move forward in a better way.”
The exhibition is open Thursdays through Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visits at other times can be arranged by appointment.
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