Laguna Beach’s Small Wonder

Cathedrals are supposed to be magnificent structures with tall, heavenward spires, gargoyles, flying buttresses and breathtaking interiors. Think St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and the newest grand edifice, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.

St. Francis by-the-Sea Cathedral in Laguna Beach is ... well, different.

It’s small.

So small, in fact, that it held a spot for a while in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest cathedral.

Yet the interior and exterior are, in their own way, breathtaking. Maybe it has to do with how small the cathedral is while presiding as the seat of authority for the American Catholic Church, a small, obscure offshoot of the Roman Catholic Church formed in Europe in the late 19th century. The liturgy is the same as the Roman church, but they split on the infallibility of the pope.

The white structure on Park Avenue is squeezed into a space as narrow as an alley, its main tower rising about 30 feet.

The short walkway to the entrance is lined with pink and white begonias.

Then, up several steps, a turn to the right, and the wonder of this 1,053-square-foot house of worship unfolds.

It can seat 50 or so comfortably, 75 with folding chairs set up in the narrow aisles. Yet it has a choir loft and an organ, though it is without an organist at the moment.

The stained-glass windows are original from the time the cathedral’s construction in 1933, and colorful Spanish tiles decorate walkways, steps and arches. The altar is little more than an indentation yet has the aura of sanctity.

Wood beams, which spread across the breadth of the interior, were years ago ornately inscribed with spiritual messages, reflecting Laguna’s early bohemian character: “The Church of the New Age,” “Spiritual Healing” and “Meditate Upon the Chakras.”

“I was going to go over it, paint it, obliterate it so as to remove any doubt as to our beliefs,” said Bishop Simon Talarczyk, recalling when he became the spiritual head of the American Catholic Church in 1971, “but I left it because it is historical.”

The only American Catholic Church in California was almost demolished in 1993 when a city survey tagged it as a brick structure in need of seismic retrofitting. Offerings to the tiny church barely covered the light bill, Talarczyk said, and the $50,000 price tag was beyond the church’s reach. But donations and loans saved the tiny cathedral from the wrecker’s ball.

St. Francis by-the-Sea isn’t just a treasure to Laguna Beach: It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its guest book shows visitors from Washington state, New York, Pennsylvania and Toronto.

The Cathedral Chapel of St. Francis by-the-Sea, as it is formally known, was built with material from the rubble of the Long Beach earthquake. “The benches were brought from a larger church and cut in two and made to fit,” Talarczyk said.

And, because it is where the bishop’s chair -- cathedra -- rests, it is a cathedral.

They have a service Sundays at 9 a.m., attended by about 20 regulars. Baptisms are held at 10 a.m. on Sundays. They hold about two weddings a month, often cramming the guests and family into the tiny space.

It’s been a while since they had a funeral, Talarczyk said, but when they do, they have to slip the coffin in through a specially built door at the altar because the entrance is too tight for a coffin to make the turn.

“It would be very difficult, unless you stood it up straight,” he said.

The fact that the liturgy is the same as the Roman church appealed to Lucia Storing of Newport Beach. She visited St. Francis recently, looking for a place to get married. She’s Roman Catholic, but her fiancee is divorced, which makes a wedding in a Roman Catholic church difficult at best.

The cathedral is next door to a much larger church, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, but Talarczyk doesn’t feel the pressure.

“God is there too,” he said.