Westminster Abbey Elevates 10 Foreigners
By JENNY E. HELLER
Published: September 22, 1998
Life-size statues of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero and other 20th-century figures who died for their beliefs now fill the 10 niches above Westminster Abbey's main entrance that had remained empty for 500 years.
The American civil rights leader, assassinated in Memphis in 1968, is shown with outstretched palm turned up in welcome and a young girl crouching at his feet. To his left, Archbishop Romero, the liberal cleric who was gunned down in El Salvador in 1980 while celebrating Mass, smiles serenely, his eyes almost closed behind heavy-rimmed glasses. In his arms, he cradles a young boy.
The monuments, carved in French Richemont limestone, stand in a row along a stone archway towering some 20 feet above visitors. Nearly five years in the making, they were unveiled in mid-July.
Since William the Conqueror's ascent in 1066, England has crowned its kings and queens and often witnessed royal weddings and funerals in Westminster Abbey, most recently last summer, when Prince William and Prince Harry followed the coffin of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, through the doors above which the new statues now stand.
Installation of the new statues, intended to honor Christian martyrs, marks the end of a 25-year renovation of the abbey, most of which dates from the 14th century.
Architects speculate that the niches were originally intended to hold sculptures of England's monarchs and of Westminster Abbey's deans. Alterations to the abbey's west front, which had been unchanged since the time of Henry VIII, provoked more discussion than most other parts of the restoration and required the approval of Queen Elizabeth II.
In an abbey filled with plaques and monuments to illustrious British royal figures, writers and politicians, the 10 figures are the only 20th-century people represented by full-length statues. The abbey librarian, Tony Trowles, said the figures were the ''first major statues'' to be installed since one of Prime Minister William Gladstone was unveiled in 1903.
There is nothing British about the new statues, the abbey's first commemoration of people unrelated to England. ''They are representative of the major areas of persecution and representative of all continents in the world,'' said the Rev. Dr. Anthony Harvey, the subdean of Westminster.
The chief architect for the abbey, Donald Buttress, a proponent of the new monuments, argued that the church was a piece of living art that should evolve with the times rather than remaining a shrine to the past.
''Gothic architecture has niches which are part of the design; without them being filled, the architecture is incomplete,'' said Mr. Buttress, whose official abbey title is surveyor of the fabric.
The new figures stand in the facade between the abbey's twin towers, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built in the 18th century. Each of the niches resembles an ornate throne: a length of stone above bears royal insignia colored in the characteristic red and gold of England's monarchy.
In addition to King and Romero, there are statues of the Polish priest Maksymilian Kolbe, who gave his life for another prisoner at Auschwitz in 1941 and is a Roman Catholic saint; a South African, Manche Masemola, who was killed in 1928 by her animist parents for her Anglican faith on a site that has become a point of pilgrimage, and a Ugandan Anglican evangelist, Janani Luwum, an Archbishop of Uganda who is believed to have been assassinated in 1976 by the Ugandan Army.
Statues were also raised in memory of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, who was killed by the Bolsheviks and is a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church; the German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis in 1945; Esther John (born Qamar Zia), the Indian teacher and evangelist who was found brutally murdered in her bed at a mission compound in 1960; Lucian Tapiedi, an evangelist of Papua New Guinea who was killed by a villager when the Japanese invaded and incited the murder of Christians in 1942, and Wang Zhimeng, who lived among 3,000 Chinese Christians in Yunnan Province and was executed in 1973 during the Cultural Revolution's drive against religion.
The 20th century, with its totalitarian regimes, mass executions and many civil wars, has produced more Christian martyrs than any other century, Dr. Harvey said.
''This says something of great import,'' he added, gesturing toward a photograph of the facade in his study. ''In this century, the profession of the Christian faith has carried a greater cause, and that is continuing.''
Church officials who sat on the committee to select the martyrs said that placing the statues above the abbey's main entrance would send a message to those around the world being persecuted for their faith. Some choices were simple for the committee, Dr. Harvey said, but for others it became necessary to consult local church authorities.
''These 10 statues are of individual martyrs; but they are intended to represent all those others who have died (and continue to die) in similar circumstances of oppression and persecution,'' Dr. Harvey wrote recently.
None of the martyrs are given more prominence than others, and the order of the statues is purely architectural. ''There is a certain rhythm between them,'' Mr. Buttress said.
The architects and the sculptors studied photographs and pictures of the martyrs when possible and talked to surviving family members. There were no photographs of the South African martyr Manche Masemola, but the carvers reconstructed her likeness from a drawing. The architects could also find no descriptions of Lucian Tapiedi of Papua New Guinea, so sculptors based his likeness on pictures of typical people of the time and place. A team of four sculptors led by Tim Crawley, who has been working on the abbey for a decade, carved the figures.
While the people depicted are modern in appearance and dress, the statues blend with their Gothic surroundings. Only the color of the new limestone against the weathered gray of the facade sets the sculptures apart, and in decades to come, it should become indistinguishable.
To accompany the martyrs, the abbey simultaneously filled two niches on each side of the great doors of its main entrance with Gothic-style statues of women representing truth, justice, mercy and peace, virtues on which abbey officials say the martyrs based their lives.
The unveiling ceremony, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. George L. Carey, was attended by Queen Elizabeth and by the families of most of the martyrs.
Photo: The new statue of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the facade of Westminster Abbey. (John Stillwell for The New York Times)