Redesigned Knights of Columbus Chapel Blessed

Holy Family Chapel, which has hosted Catholic Masses at the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council office in New Haven since it was opened in 1971, was reopened June 11.

The chapel was completely redesigned by Father Marko Rupnik, the artist who designed the Vatican’s extraordinary Redemptoris Mater Chapel, and features four brilliantly colored mosaics.

The life-sized depictions of the Nativity, the Wedding Feast at Cana, the Crucifixion and the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael grace the four walls of the chapel, which is on the fourth floor of the 22-story office at One Columbus Plaza. The chapel was closed last fall and the room was completely stripped of its old walls, ceiling and furnishings. 

Father Rupnik and a crew of artists and craftsmen traveled from Europe earlier this year to create the new mosaics, and other workmen have been installing beautiful wood paneling and furniture in the chapel in recent weeks.

The new Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus,  Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Conn.,  presided over a special liturgy for blessing a new church or chapel. Attending were more than 65 state deputies from Knights of Columbus jurisdictions throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and the Philippines. The state deputies were in New Haven week for their annual meeting preceding the beginning the Order's fraternal year on July 1. 

The $800,000 project brings features of both Eastern and Western church traditions together in one dazzling array of color, both flat and curved wood features, and a lighting design that dramatically highlights the mosaics and the altar.