LAGUNA BEACH : Tiny Church Designated a Landmark

Once listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the planet’s smallest cathedral, St. Francis by-the-Sea American Catholic Church in Laguna Beach will again bask in the spotlight Saturday when it is publicly dedicated as a national landmark.

The diminutive cathedral was built with rubble from the Long Beach earthquake in 1933 in the shadow of the imposing St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue.

In 1988, it was brought to the attention of the National Register of Historic Places by Anne Frank, a UC Irvine librarian who lives in Laguna Beach.

Frank, who was drawn to the cathedral while taking a class in historic preservation, said she was struck by how the design reflects the religious roots of the church, a combination of Christianity and theosophy--philosophies incorporating a variety of beliefs, including elements of Eastern religions.

“It’s the eclectic quality of combining these two elements that makes the building so unusual,” she said. “The architecture reflects the church, which was an example of sort of an alternative religious movement.”

The church’s priest, Bishop Simon Talarczyk, said St. Francis by-the-Sea is the only American Catholic Church in California, and the only one he knows of in the nation.

The American Catholic Church is a descendant of the Old Catholic Church, which broke from the Roman Catholic Church when the infallibility of the Pope was declared in 1870, Talarczyk said.

The American Catholic Church is less “hamstrung by the textbook morality or rules” than the Roman Catholic Church, Talarczyk said.

Its clergy, for example, are allowed to marry. However, the church still shares much of old traditions. At St. Francis, Latin Mass is still celebrated once a month.

Both the similarities and the differences are reflected within the 60-foot by 17-foot structure, where only 48 of the churches 200 parishioners can worship at a time.

The walls are decorated with the 14 Stations of the Cross depicting events leading from the condemnation to the burial of Christ. Statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary stand at the front of the church, and a processional cross rests against the wall.

Beneath the baptistery, however, is a zodiac. And stretching overhead are beams painted with the decorative words, “Spiritual Healing,” “Reincarnation” and “Without Vision the People Perish,” the offering of an artist who exchanged his work for lodging in the choir loft in the 1930s.

While officials once considered removing the wording, the beams have been left untouched out of a respect for the history of the building, Talarczyk said.

Instead, brochures explain that the untraditional decor represents not the beliefs of the current congregation but the “wide interest in Eastern religion and philosophy” that is a part of the cathedral’s history.

Still, if there is to be a church where such diversity mingles, Frank said, it has found an ideal home.

“I’ve always thought Laguna is the perfect place because Laguna is known as the place where people walk to a different drummer.”