St Pauls Cathedral Anglican.

St Pauls Cathedral Anglican the corner of Swanston Street & Flinders Street

 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

This is from the St Pauls Cathedral (Anglican) website.

History

St Paul’s Cathedral is built on the site where the first public Christian services in Melbourne were led by Dr Alexander Thomson in 1836. Soon afterwards a small wooden chapel was built elsewhere, and the area became a corn market until 1848, when it was made available for the building of the bluestone St Paul’s Parish Church.

Consecrated in 1852, this Church was used until 1885, when it was demolished to make way for the present Cathedral. The decision to build on the site of the existing church was made because of its proximity to the railway and soon to be completed cable tramway service. The Swanston Street and Flinders Street corner remains one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections today, ensuring the Cathedral a place at the heart of city life.

The Architectural style of the Cathedral is described as Gothic transitional, being partly Early English and partly Decorated. It was designed by the distinguished English architect William Butterfield, who was noted for his ecclesiastical work.

The foundation stone was laid in 1880. Butterfield steadfastly refused to visit Melbourne and the building program was beset with all the problems that arise from management by remote control. He resigned from the project briefly in 1882 and finally in 1884, and the building was completed under the supervision of Joseph Reed, who designed many of Melbourne’s public buildings. Nonetheless, St Paul’s remains Butterfield’s final masterpiece.

On 22 January 1891 the Cathedral was consecrated, although it was not the building we see today. The erection of the spires did not begin until 1926, and then to the design of John Barr of Sydney rather than using the original design of an octagonal central tower and gable west end towers of Butterfield. In the 1960s extensive work was carried out on the exterior, and in 1989 a major National Trust appeal to enable the restoration of the Cathedral’s magnificent organ.

More recently, and completed in 2009, restoration works were carried out to the exterior and interior of the Cathedral.

This is from the St Pauls Cathedral (Anglican) website.

The Pentacles or Five Pointed Star

One of the interesting items to view when visiting the Cathedral, is the Five Pointed Star

THE DECORATIVE FIVE POINTED STARS

The pentagram, pentangle, pentalpha is a very ancient symbol which had many meanings before it was adopted by the Church of Satan in the 1960s. Because it was a star it was taken as a helpful sign ‐ a fixed source of light in the darkness of the night by which one could find one's way and keep on the right path.

Ancient Hebrews saw in it the five books of Moses (first five books of the Old Testament). In Christian times it represented the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the wise men to the infant Jesus.

As a friendly guide and a sign of welcome for travellers it was often fixed above the doorways of houses. This is the origin of the line in the song "I'll sing you One O etc", in which "Five is the symbol at your door". It also represented the five wounds of Christ from his crucifixion ‐ two in the hands, two in the feet and one in the side. In Mediaeval times it was often taken as representing the five virtues required of a knight ‐ generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry and piety.

Only in late mediaeval times did it become associated with evil, because of its resemblance to a goat when turned upside down. In Renaissance times the pentagram, surrounded by a circle, was taken to represent man (head, two arms and two legs) at the centre of the universe and as a microcosm of the universe. In the second half of the twentieth century the use of the pentagram as a symbol of evil, which could be traced back to late mediaeval times but had been largely forgotten by most people, was revived ‐ first by those who began around 1950 to practise witchcraft (wicca), and later in the 1960s by the Church of Satan.

St Paul's Cathedral was built in the 1880s and the pentagrams in its windows and on the arches have nothing to do with the mediaeval or recent use of the symbol by witches and Satanists but represent Christ as the star and his five wounds which he suffered to bring life to all humanity. That is why, in the stars around the sanctuary of St Paul's, there is a cross at the end of each point.

The True Meaning Of The Pentagram.

A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha or pentangle or, more formally, as a star pentagon) is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes. The word pentagram comes from the Greek word πεντάγραμμον (pentagrammon), a noun form of πεντάγραμμος (pentagrammos) or πεντέγραμμος (pentegrammos), a word meaning roughly "five-lined" or "five lines", from πέντε (pente), "five"+ γραμμή (grammē), "line".

Pentagrams were used symbolically in ancient Greece and Babylonia, and are used today as a symbol of faith by many Wiccans, akin to the use of the cross by Christians and the Star of David by Jews. The pentagram has magical associations, and many people who practice Neopagan faiths wear jewelry incorporating the symbol. Christians once more commonly used the pentagram to represent the five wounds of Jesus. The pentagram has associations with Freemasonry and is also utilized by other belief systems.

The word "pentacle" is sometimes used synonymously with "pentagram", and this usage is borne out by the Oxford English Dictionary, although that work specifies that a circumscription makes the shape more particularly a pentacle. Wiccans and Neopagans often make use of this more specific definition for a pentagram enclosed in a circle.

Early history

The first known uses of the pentagram are found in Mesopotamian writings dating to about 3000 BC. The Sumerian pentagrams served as pictograms for the word "UB" meaning "corner, angle, nook; a small room, cavity, hole; pitfall", suggesting something very similar to the pentemychos (see below on the Pythagorean use for what pentemychos means). In René Labat's index system of Sumerian hieroglyphs/pictograms it is shown with two points up. In the Babylonian context, the edges of the pentagram were probably orientations: forward, backward, left, right, and "above". These directions also had an astrological meaning, representing the five planets Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Venus as the "Queen of Heaven" (Ishtar) above.