NATIONAL CATHEDRAL - WASHINGTON DC

Resurrection Chapel

Bethlehem Chapel

Inside the West Entrance

The Central Tower

The Northwest Tower

The Great Organ

The Southwest Tower

Sunday Hours Open8 am–5 pm
Tours Offered 1–2:30 pm
Monday–Friday Hours Open 10 am–5:30 pm
Tours Offered 10–11:30 am 12:45–4 pm
Saturday Hours Open 10 am–4:30 pm
Tours Offered 10–11:30 am 12:45–3:30 pm

On January 24, 1791, President George Washington commissioned Major Pierre L’Enfant to create a visionary plan for the nation’s capital. It was L’Enfant who first imagined “a great church for national purposes.” Not until a century later, with support from community leaders such as Charles C. Glover, did plans for building Washington National Cathedral gain momentum.

The longest-running construction project in Washington, D.C., history officially began on September 29, 1907, when workmen laid the Cathedral’s foundation stone. President Theodore Roosevelt and the Bishop of London spoke to a crowd of ten thousand. The stone itself came from a field near Bethlehem and was set into a larger piece of American granite. On it was the inscription: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

In 2007, the Cathedral marked the start of its second century with a centennial celebration including festivals, reunions, exalted liturgy, concerts, lectures, and the inauguration of the new dean’s Sunday Forum.