The Virgin Mary’s cloak glows as she humbly bows to the Archangel Gabriel, a messenger of God. He reveals that she is pregnant with the future savior, a life-changing announcement that she quietly accepts. A dove, which represents the Holy Spirit, hovers overhead in the deep blue heaven sprinkled with twinkling stars.
But there’s so much more to see in a stunning new icon—a term that means, in this context, a work of religious art—at St. Richard’s Episcopal Church on Lake Howell Road in Winter Park. The 14-foot-wide canvas, which hangs to the left of the altar, also highlights nature’s beauty, the church’s architecture and the congregation’s commitment to inclusivity.
Among the golden-clad holy figures in the image is an assortment of the state’s rare and endangered species. Look closely for the outlines of a bobcat, an alligator, sea turtles and a family of sandhill cranes.
Sacred plants, including passionflower, longleaf pine and Southern magnolia are also revealed, along with butterflies, bees and a ladybug. Rising fireflies transform into stars. The magical, mystical work is truly an artistic celebration of the divine inspired by the Gospel of Luke’s account of the Annunciation.
“We are very blessed by this gift,” says Rev. Harry Coverston, a Franciscan priest who attends St. Richard’s. (The church is in the midst of a search process for a new rector following the departure last year of Rev. Alison P. Harrity, who is now rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Panama City.)
Adds Coverston: “The icon is a balm for the wounded hearts of many of us who grew up in Florida and have seen it change in such drastic ways—often to the detriment of the most vulnerable life forms among us. This icon depicts that fragility and reminds us of our responsibilities to the Creation as its stewards.”
The work reflects the sacred vision of a long-time parishioner, who wishes to be anonymous. He commissioned it after visiting the Saint-Malo Cathedral in Saint-Malo, France, where he was awed by an Annunciation painting that used highly textured gold leaf to connect Gabriel’s shimmering armor to Mary’s humble blue fabric robe.
He later described his concept to artist Sayaka Kamakari, a fellow St. Richard’s parishioner and a member of the church’s Icon Guild—which was formed as an internal ministry in 2014. Would she be interested in creating an icon that incorporated elements of the natural world? Indeed she would.
Kamakari learned to “write” icons—that’s the correct term for painting these sacred images—during classes held in a dedicated on-campus workspace leased by the guild. “I was drawn to iconography because it’s so much more than just painting a scene from history,” she says. “To me, an icon is like a sacred portal that lets you feel God’s presence, the holy world right there with you. They are truly windows into heaven.”
Ultimately, Kamakari’s stunning visual story incorporated 27 birds and animals, 29 plants and six insects. In the background, adjacent to a palm tree, the sanctuary’s distinctive triangular roofline can be seen above lush greenery. Those familiar terrestrial elements, in particular, make this icon distinctive.
“That imagery of Gabriel and Mary, I mean, that’s nothing really new,” says the donor. “That’s been around for hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of years. What’s new is that we made it specific to this state and this church.”
Kamakari, who earned a Master of Architecture and Civil Engineering degree from the Shibaura Institute of Technology in her native Japan, spent her early career as a designer and architect. She wasn’t an Episcopalian until she moved to Florida in 2009, where she found “a wonderful spiritual home” at St. Richard’s and decided to concentrate her artistic practice on iconography.
“Even so, my heart remains open to all traditions,” adds Kamakari. “I believe icons transcend specific denominations and can bring sacred space to anyone, anywhere.” In fact, icons—which became popular in Episcopal churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—originated in the third century and are still deeply central to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
In 2023, Kamakari worked with Katerina Tsigas Papainou, the church’s resident iconographer, and Cindy Borr, a musician, artist and guild member, to create a multipaneled icon that depicts Gabriel, Mary (identified as “Holy Protection”), Mary Magdalene and Archangel Michael flanking Jesus—whose hand is raised in a traditional blessing.
That earlier icon, known as “The Lady Chapel Installation,” hangs to the right of the altar and, like all icons, features typically stylized figures that are meant to invite spiritual contemplation. The more recent work, known as “The Annunciation in the Florida Wild,” is different but complementary—offering a scene of subtropical serenity.
The topographical tableau took Kamakari 10 months—about 1,120 hours—to paint (well, write). “I worked on it in my living room,” she says. “Having it with me allowed me to immerse myself completely in the creative process. It was like a piece of heaven into my own home.”
Certainly the icon adds beauty to the sanctuary’s interior and will likely draw art lovers to the church, which was designed in 1971 by Nils Schweizer—one of the area’s most historically important architects and an acknowledged master of modernism.
Already, the work is getting praise from parishioners. “As a Cradle [lifelong] Episcopalian and a member of St. Richard’s since 1983, I continue to be amazed at the knowledge, wisdom and creativity of our parish family,” says Burr Anderson, a lay minister at the church.
Adds Anderson: “For me, the unique talents of people like Sayaka Kamakari and other members of our Icon Guild not only serve to highlight the natural beauty of our sanctuary but also create a genuine opportunity to experience the Lord’s presence in our life and worship.”
Bonnie Danner, a former senior warden at the church, says that the new icon “takes my breath away with its unique presentation, which brings spiritual comfort and a sense of belonging through the amazing depiction of natural beauty in Florida.”
St. Richard’s—named for St. Richard of Chichester, an English cleric who became the Bishop of Chichester in 1245 and was sainted nine years following his death—began as a mission parish sponsored by All Saints’ Episcopal Church on New England Avenue in Winter Park.
In 1956, some 39 people celebrated the church’s first service in the auditorium of Lakemont Elementary School. A few months later, the developer of the Tanglewood subdivision donated property, allowing the church to build a combined church and parish hall that hosted its first services by the summer of 1958.
In 1960, the mission was approved as a full parish with a permanent rector and plans to add more buildings. In 1967, the growing parish hired Schweizer—who was uniquely suited for the job—to design the sanctuary.
The architect, a devout Episcopalian and student of Frank Lloyd Wright at his renowned Taliesin studio from 1948 to 1952, was at the time president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on Church Architecture and the Guild for Religious Architecture.
Schweizer, who died in 1988, moved to the state in 1952 to be the Southeastern representative for Wright. He helped lead the design of Florida Southern College’s “Child of the Sun” campus in Lakeland, home to the largest collection of Wright buildings in the world.
In 1960, Schweizer and his brothers, Mark and Hans, founded Schweizer Associates Architects. The company, later called Environmental Design Group and then Schweizer Incorporated, worked on such landmark projects as the Orlando International Airport, the Orlando Public Library, the Loch Haven Art Center (now the Orlando Museum of Art) and the Mexican Pavilion at Epcot at Walt Disney World.
Schweizer also designed 300 churches located from Gainesville to the Bahamas, including St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral, St. John the Baptist in Orlando and Church of the Good Shepherd in Maitland. Many of his churches feature soaring rooflines that point upward to the heavens.
His son, Kevin, also an architect, described his father’s design philosophy as one that connects the landscape and climate in an organic way. He wrote: “When Nils said, ‘build to heal,’ he meant build with the sun to create spaces into which light penetrates and is shared and reflected and absorbed until there is only the silence of light to mend our souls as we sleep.”
That approach certainly describes the architecture of St. Richard’s, where the 300-seat sanctuary features a soaring ceiling supported by massive, exposed beams that draw the eye upward toward an abstract stained-glass window that depicts the Trinity. The exterior, which exudes an earthy brick-and-wood aesthetic, is recognizable by its expansive pyramidal roof.
The unusual design—a sharp departure from the heavy gothic style associated with traditional
Episcopal churches—also reflects the church’s progressive congregation and its history of groundbreaking “firsts.”
For example, Marion Thullbery was ordained as the first woman priest in the 15-county Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida at St. Richard’s in 1986. And the church conducted the first same-sex marriage sanctioned by the diocese in 2022.
This inclusive attitude is reflected in the new icon, says Coverston. “The icon speaks to the radical hospitality of the parish, where the unexpected become the focus of God’s attention and the recipients of God’s blessing.”
MEANINGFUL MESSAGES FOR THE FAITHFUL
In the terminology of the Episcopal Church, an icon is a stylized religious painting used as a holy tool for prayer and worship. The word comes from the Greek word eikon, which simply means “image.”
Rather than being viewed as mere art or an idol to be worshiped, an icon is treated not as an object of worship but as a “window to heaven” that helps focus a person’s mind and heart on God.
Traditional icons usually portray Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, various saints or stories from the Bible. They are often painted with egg tempera paint on a prepared wooden board and usually decorated with gold leaf.
The figures typically have long noses, small mouths and large, solemn eyes. All of these characteristics have meaning: The eyes symbolize deep spiritual vision; the noses symbolize the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit; and the mouths symbolize inner silence, peace and restraint from gossip or worldly talk.
Images appear flat because perspective creates an illusion of physical depth and worldly space. Icons intentionally reject this to show a heavenly world that does not follow the physical laws of Earth. Figures are flooded with a heavenly light that shines from within them, erasing earthly shadows.
Because icons are meant to teach theology through pictures, church members often say an iconographer “writes” an icon rather than paints it. While icons are most famous in Eastern Orthodox churches, they’ve seen a major revival in the Episcopal Church.
The church bases its use of icons on the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787 A.D., where it was decided that because God became a physical human in Jesus, it is good and right to make physical images of holy things.
Said contemporary Greek iconographer Photis Kontoglou: “Icons raise the soul and mind of the believer who sees the icon to the realm of the spirit, of the incorruptible, of the kingdom of God.”