The Honan Chapel - Gallery Collection


Image TitleHonan Collection: presidential chair
DescriptionIn the context of the Honan Chapel, the presidential chair alludes to the priest as presiding over the Eucharist in the post-Vatican II liturgical re-ordering of the chapel. The back of the chair allude to the early Irish High Crosses while the arm-rests are carved fish. In the early Church the word Ichthys, as well as meaning a fish, held for Christians a meaning of the highest significance; it was a brief profession of faith in the divinity of Christ, the Redeemer of mankind. Believers in this mystic Ichthys were themselves "little fishes", according to a passage on baptism by an early Church writer, Tertullian (De baptismo Chapter 1): "we, little fishes, after the image of our Ichthys, Jesus Christ, are born in the water". The fish symbol was also associated with the Eucharist. This item has been catalogued by Virginia Teehan & Elizabeth Wincott Heckett in The Honan Chapel: A Golden Vision published by Cork University Press in 2004.
ContributorImogen Stuart, Dublin
Contribution Year1987
  
PhotographerDaniel C. Doolan
CopyrightDaniel C. Doolan and the Honan Trust
Date of Photograph2006
CollectionChapel Collection