[Photos] UK 30 - Orkney, The Italian Chapel

[moonvoice]

The Italian Chapel was already on my to do list, but when I met Lane in Chichester and got to have a conversation with her about her own visit to Orkney, she strongly recommended the Italian Chapel and that made me bump it up the list, and I'm really glad I did.

So a bit of history. The Italian Chapel is a Roman Catholic Chapel that was built by Italian POWs during World War II. It is made of two Nissen huts, and features extensive use of trompe l'oeil. The POWs were sent to a previously uninhabited island, and alone, far from home, with no real idea of what would happen to them, they began to wish for a place to worship, and asked for the resources to make this possible.

Everything you see, just about, is painted. The tiles are painted. Many of the wooden details are painted. Very well rendered by Domenico Chiocchetti, a prisoner from Moena (and details later finished in the 60s and again later on). The facade was made of concrete to conceal the shape of the hut. The bell was made of cardboard. The light holders were made of corned beef tins. And so on and so forth, ingenuity in a time of war.

While Chiocchetti's fellow prisoners were released, he remained to finish the Chapel. And in 1958, a group of Orcadians set up a Chapel Preservation Committee and Chiocchetti returned to help restore it. Other released POWs have since returned to commemorate the 50th anniversary of coming to the island. To this day, it is considered under joint ownership of Moena, Italy, and Orkney.



The interior. Once again, thanks to patience and despite the incredibly good weather, we had the entire place to ourselves.




The exterior.









Wonderful examples of trompe l'oeil.



The roof and walls, beautifully painted.



Here you can see the plasterboard seam, painted over.



The wooden stations of the cross were donated.







The faux stained glass is also painted.




So yes, very glad we went. And so glad we got to take my friend Silvia, who is Italian. :)

Comments

[cmcmck]

Chiochetti was able to stay (forced to in a sense) because his home, way up in northern Italy, was under Nazi occupation until very late on.

It is such an incredible place.

[moonvoice]

Oh, thank you for that! And it really is. I found it saddening too, but it's amazing how desperation and devastation can drive people to such ingenuity.

[elinox]

Wow, that's beautiful!

[moonvoice]

It really was, for such a small place it sure packed a punch

[silverjackal]

The devotion here is palpable, as well as the skill and ingenuity. It's very touching that even divided by war people could find mutual ground as it were in an expression of faith. How extraordinary and exquisite that that is all paint. I particularly love the ceiling and the faux-stone arches around the door.

[moonvoice]

The ceiling and the arches around the door were incredible. I spent a lot of time just imagining these people so far from home, in this place they'd made for themselves, worshipping, and it seemed sad and hopeful and good all at once, they turned the most humble of materials into something really amazing.

[silverjackal]

There's a biological research station not to far from me which is a repurposed POW camp. Really it was ideal -- they didn't need razor wire or walls because where would people go in the wild with nothing for hundreds of kilometers, no food, no maps, no ability to prepare or assistance once they got away? The core of the facility has been preserved as a museum, but the rest of the buildings are laboratories, a warehouse, dormitories for the scientists and a commissary. (I've stayed there to do some work and the nosh was plentiful and very good and the beds comfortable and clean -- excellent facilities, really, so it's comforting to think that the prisoners hopefully did not suffer in squalor. I know several chose to stay in this country after their release, having lost their families -- if they ever had them -- back home.) One of the things preserved is the humble little log cut chapel which is set a little apart in a pretty grove. It's not pronouncedly Catholic like this because the worshipers were drawn from a variety of Christian faiths, with a fair number of Lutherans, etc. and it is no where near as gorgeous, but it is also remarkable -- the space feels pure and holy still, though no worship has been conducted there in over half a decade. How strange it is that these tiny unofficial places filled with desperate people are more profound than the great cathedrals (which are, after all demonstrations of wealth and power and not truly intended to be sacred).