LIGHT OF THE WORLD (1979)

On one of the highest hills of Denver's southwestern outskirts looms a dramatic new church, Light of the World. The parish was created by Archbishop Casey in 1979, when 650 Catholic families lived in the area and twenty more subdivisons were under construction. Francis Syrianey, the founding pastor, first held services in the gym of Colorow Elementary School at 6317 South Estes Street. He rented a house at 6295 South Flower Way as a rectory and used the full basement for parish meetings. All the while, Father Syrianey, a noted liturgist and church scholar, was planning a modern building that would be both functional and inspiring. He put together a design team that included Eugene Walsh, a liturgical consultant, John Buscemi, a liturgical artist, four parishioners, and Karl Berg of Denver's Hoover Berg Desmond architectural firm.

"The new building," Father Syrianey told the Denver Catholic Register of March 5, 1986, "was designed from the inside out. Berg did not put a line on paper until he had sat down together with the staff, the consultants, the building committee and myself to put down in writing who we are, what we are, where we are and what we wanted in a building."

The hilltop site, above the busy retail strip of Bowles Avenue and overlooking proliferating subdivisions, had been acquired by Archbishop Vehr. There, Father Syrianey and his team designed a church of modest materials--brick, drywall, laminated timber, and glass blocks. The ecclesiastical complex embraced the traditional forms of baptistry, cloister, colonnade, Eucharistic chapel, gallery, worship space, and tower.

The tower rising above the baptistry is a geometric design of circles and squares, two conflicting shapes reconciled at the top to symbolize the guiding principle that the church community is a place for reconciling opposites. Progressive Architecture magazine, which made Light of the World its cover story for the February 1986 issue, praised the structure for "clarity, modesty, and the almost spiritual elegance of its organization."

The Colorado chapter of the American Institute of Architects concurred and presented one of its Honor Awards for Design Excellence to Hoover Berg Desmond for this edifice.

Archbishop Stafford blessed the new church on September 13, 1987, telling a standing-room-only crowd, "You are the light of the world, you dear brothers and sisters, as you sit on this high hill, silhouetted with those magnifcent mountains behind us." Father Syrianey was not there to see this dedication of the church he began, as he had passed away January 1, 1986.

John F. Dold, pastor since 1986, affirmed in 1988 that the fast growing parish of some 1,800 registered families had over sixty active parish and community organizations. Interviewed in The Denver Post of June 27, 1987, Father Dold said, "I have never been in a place where liturgy works so well, because of the simplicity and openness of the place and the openness of the people."

Light of the World with its spectacular tower--a square brick facade meeting a conical blonde brick one with a quarter cone skylight on top--has become a striking landmark of the southwest metro area. This tower catches light by day for the baptistry below and by night is an illuminated symbol of the Light of the World.