It would be seen by the congregation as they entered and departed the church.

Up until recently the design has been painted on, but over time the colours faded until there was no colour left at all in 2000.

Parishioner and generous community supporter Viv Barrett wanted to see the window back to its former glory in his lifetime.

Not one to sit back and hope someone else would do something, Viv decided he would be the one to make it happen. Read more

The restoration of the 137-year-old windows is part of a more than $2 million project to upgrade and earthquake-strengthen St Joseph's Catholic Church that was built with limestone taken from Opihi River in 1879 and damaged in the magnitude 7.1 quake that hit Canterbury in 2010. Read more

The chapel, built in 1916, is on land donated by Ms Scott's grandfather, Peter McCarthy, in 1911 and 1918 for the boarding school. He also donated buildings. The 270-piece altar, from Italy, was donated to the chapel in 1926 by the Hart family.

When the Dominican Sisters sold Teschemakers in 2000, they intended to gift the altar and the chapel's stained glass windows to the Holy Name parish. That intention was formalised by a deed of transfer in 2010.

However the Teschemakers Heritage Protection Society opposes removing the altar and stained glass windows to the Holy Name Parish, contending that the chapel, altar and windows should remain together as an architechtural unit.

In August last year, attempts to remove the altar were thwarted by protesters who obtained an interim enforcement order preventing its removal, which was confirmed by the Environment Court in a decision in October last year after Fr Chamberlain had applied for the order to be set aside.

The Environment Court had already ruled the altar was a fixture, not a chattel, but since that ruling in October last year, Fr Chamberlain had further investigations carried out, including 25 digital radar scans of the altar and its concrete foundation, followed by exploratory drilling. The High Court was asked to hear the additional evidence from those investigations which, it was contended by Fr Chamberlain, showed the altar was not fixed, was a chattel and could be shifted without resource consent. The dispute continues.

Source:

• ODT:
• Image: ODT