Doves have several symbolic meanings, ranging from peace to hope to love to mourning.
A new exhibition of about 1,300 origami doves opened in November at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church’s sanctuary in Buckhead as part of its 100-year anniversary celebration.
The Rev. Bill Britt, the church’s senior pastor, said the doves mean “different things to different people.”
“Some see them as a reminder of hope that the dove was a symbol of hope in the Old Testament,” he said. “Others see them as a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, a New Testament idea. The one I didn’t anticipate is people seeing them as the communion of saints, people who have died and are watching over us.”
The doves will be on display until June 9. Peachtree Road UMC is one of just three United States locations and seven worldwide places exhibiting them. The original U.S. dove display was created by German artist Michael Pendry, and it was at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and then the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, said Brittany Charron, Peachtree Road UMC’s director of evangelism and hospitality. Because Pendry wasn’t available to create Peachtree Road UMC’s exhibit, Taro’s Origami Studio in Brooklyn, New York, did it.
“As a [church] member for over 20 years, and a member who has one flying for someone I’ve lost recently, for me there’s comfort,” Charron said. “There’s peace and hope. We hope people feel that peace and hope, We also hope they feel the presence of a loved one and of God. The doves are taking the word of God out into,” the community.”
The doves fly from the back of the sanctuary to the front, “capturing the feeling of transcendence,” a news release stated.
“It’s a beautiful symbol of our faith, and what I like about what our artist has done, even though [the doves] are static, they feel like a flock in motion,” Britt said. “The way they flow, they go from the balcony to the nave of the church, down towards the pulpit and then they turn and head up through the cupola. It gives me the sense that they’re in motion.. That movement leads us into the place of worship and out into the church and into the world. It’s that whole movement thing that inspires me.”
Charron said she was “just blown away” when she first viewed the doves in the church.
“I looked at them and I stood at the pulpit side underneath the stained glass windows, and I looked up and they were flying down from the balcony, and I was overcome. I sort of couldn’t believe them. I was transfixed,” she said, later adding she’s in awe each time she returns to the sanctuary to see the display.
The church hosts docent-led dove tours on Sundays and Wednesdays. Group tours are available, too.
Once the display ends, the people who have sponsored a dove can pick them up. Each dove will be embossed with the church’s centennial logo.
Britt joked that he hoped church service attendees would, during his sermons, pay attention to him and not the doves.
“It’s a fitting tribute to our 100 years of ministry, our centennial,” he said. “The fact it will be here reminds us of who we are and our mission.”
For more information, including how to book a tour or sponsor a dove (for a $100 donation), visit https://www.prumc.org/doves/. Charron said there’s a limited number of unsponsored doves, so she suggests you act fast.
