One hundred years ago, on February 6, 1924, Washington National Cathedral first became a shrine in America’s civil religion when former president Woodrow Wilson was laid to rest in the crypt of Bethlehem Chapel. The crypt chapel had opened just twelve years earlier and was at that time the only completed worship space in the cathedral. A year later, over a quater-of-a-million people journeyed to the-cathedral-under-construction to pay their respects to Wilson and see what would at length become the world’s sixth-largest Gothic-style cathedral.

After 100 years, the cathedral will soon host its second funeral for a Democratic president of the United States, Jimmy Carter. In the interim, the cathedral has hosted the funerals of Republican presidents Eisenhower (1969), Reagan (2004), Ford (2006), and Bush (2018). Each of these occurred at the cathedral between the presidents’ lying in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol and their burial at their presidential libraries. Wilson’s remains have also been relocated from the crypt to a tomb in the nave in a bay dedicated to him. The cathedral has also hosted memorial services (in the absence of the body) for the Democratic presidents who have died since Wilson.

But it did not host their funerals. Franklin Roosevelt’s Christian funeral service in Washington took place at the White House (1944), John F. Kennedy’s at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Cathedral (1963), and Lyndon Johnson’s at National City Christian Church (1973). The funeral of Harry S. Truman (1972), like that of Republican president Richard M. Nixon (1994), did not include the travel of the president’s body to Washington.

Chartered in 1893 as Washington’s Episcopal cathedral, there is little doubt that the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, as Washington National Cathedral is officially known, achieves much of its fame because of its connection with the burial of presidents. While it conducts a vibrant ministry including daily worship services and many special events, including those for presidential inaugurations, it is the funerals which draw the most attention.

Early promoters of the cathedral, such as Bishop James E. Freeman, envisioned the cathedral as “America’s Westminster Abbey,” the final resting place of the nation’s great and good. The interment of President Wilson within its walls in 1924 and the reinterment of Admrial George Dewey from Arlington National Cemetery to the cathedral in 1925 suggested that this vision might become a reality. But the burial of President Warren Harding in Ohio and President Franklin Roosevelt’s rejection of Bishop Freeman’s offer of a final resting place scuttled Freeman’s ambition for the cathedral. (In 1932 Time magazine reported clerics calling Freeman the “body-snatcher” [May 9]. Roosevelt set down his resolution to be buried at his New York estate in 1937 upon learning that former secretary of state Frank Kellogg would be buried in the cathedral [Ward, Before the Trumpet, 1-3.].

Just as Westminister Abbey transitioned after the death of King George II from the final resting place of British monarchs to the theatre for their funeral, so has the cathedral transitioned from would-be mausoleum to funeral church. It is now the accepted place for presidental funerals, even of those who, like President Carter, have deep ties to other Washington houses of worship. (Carter was a member of and taught Sunday school classes at Washington’s First Baptist Church.)

In keeping with the prevelant American custom, presidents’ resting places are elsewhere, at their homes throughout the nation, not in its metropolis or the cathedral. Yet through its size, history, and established protocals, the Washington National Cathedral has secured its place in the nation’s rites of mourning.