Christ Cathedral (Crystal Cathedral)

Anaheim

Christ Cathedral, formerly and informally known as the Crystal Cathedral, is an American church building of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, located in Garden Grove, California. The reflective glass building, by the firm of Philip Johnson/John Burgee Architects seats 2,248 people. The church was touted as "the largest glass building in the world" when it was completed in 1981. The building has one of the largest musical instruments in the world, the Hazel Wright Memorial Organ. Until 2013, the building was the principal place of worship for Crystal Cathedral Ministries, a congregation of the Reformed Church in America, founded in 1955 by Robert H. Schuller. Crystal Cathedral Ministries filed for bankruptcy in October 2010 and in February 2012 sold the building and its adjacent campus to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange for use as the diocese's new cathedral. The building, especially the interior, was renovated by Johnson Fain to accommodate the Roman Catholic liturgy. It was the stated intentions of the diocese to respect the style of the original architecture to the greatest extent possible.