The National Cathedral has never been in as powerful an earthquake before. Its foundation stone was first laid on Sept. 29, 1907 in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt. The last time a near six-point-o earthquake rattled the nation's capital city was in 1897 when William McKinley was president. That other 5.9 quake's epicenter was located in the Piedmont Plateau, which slices through central Virginia and is wedged between the Blue Ridge Mountains on one side and the Coastal Plains on the other.

It took 83 years to complete the exterior of the massive Gothic Revival cathedral. The final finial or capstone was place on Sept. 29, 1990 in the presence of President George W.H. Bush. All though three of the four finials on the central bell tower have toppled as a result of the earthquake, and the fourth is twisted on its axis, none of the effected finials was the last one place. According to the National Cathedral's communications office the final capstone was placed on the southwest tower, although through the years the central bell tower has received lightening damage.

The National Cathedral, a massive building covering more than 83,000 square feet, is nestled on the corner of Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues in the northwest and largest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is built upon 57 acres surrounding Mount St. Albans. At 377 feet above sea level, the Mount is the highest elevation in Washington. From there the central bell tower - which apparently sustained the most damage - rises another 301 feet making the National Cathedral very visible above the skyline, making it the highest point in the District of Columbia.

"It's very distressing," lamented the Very Rev. Samuel Lloyd, III, the Cathedral's out-going dean to NPR News. "This place that seems so massive and so secure and was built to be a sign of God's security has been shaken in its foundations."

However the Dean explained that it seemed that most of the damage to the Cathedral is decorative and on the exterior. But since the Cathedral is basically and hand-made building, it will be very expensive, with costs soaring into the millions of dollars, to restore the Cathedral's individual hand-carved works-of-art ornamental pieces to their original grandeur and splendor.

Wednesday, in an out-of-doors news conference on the south side entrance stairs, Jim Cutts said that the main thing going for the National Cathedral is its very construction. The Gothic Revival cathedral is built in the style of the long-standing grand European cathedrals, which have endured, from long before the Reformation, weathering the elements and surviving wars.

He noted that the Cathedral is built stone upon stone and doled together which results in an extremely sound structural frame.

"It is the architectural embellishments that have been damaged because of their fragile nature." explained Cutts, a structural engineer who is very familiar with the National Cathedral. "The weakest part of the structure (cathedral) is the lacy, delicate pinnacles that are on top."

"The good news is, that this was not devastating," the Dean added. "It could have been much worse."

Unlike the Christ Church Cathedral in New Zealand, which earlier this year sustained unrepairable earthquake damage, the National Cathedral's structural engineers believe that the Washington edifice itself is structurally sound.

"Structurally the building is sound," Cutts said. "There is no concern about the structure of the building other than the decorative elements which are giving us a problem."

He also noted that the Cathedral's flying buttresses and the vaulted ceiling performed the jobs they were built for, to give the church strength and stability.

Several of the Cathedral's bells could be heard ringing during the height of the earthquake, but none seem to have been shaken loose in the central bell tower, affectionately called Gloria in Excelsis Tower for it houses the only combined set of carillon and peal bells in North America. The smallest bell of the Cathedral's 63 bells weights a mere 17 pounds, the largest a hefty 12 tons.

"We are shaken, but alright," explained Lee Harrison of the National Cathedral's Communications Department.

Harrison said that when the earthquake struck the midday Eucharist had already been celebrated and people were returning to the Cathedral from lunch for the 2:30 p.m. Intercession Service in the Holy Spirit Chapel. Now the National Cathedral is closed to the public and all worship events have been temporarily suspended, at least through Saturday (Aug. 27) until the structural safety of the Cathedral can be determined by the the Cathedral's architectures, stone masons, and structural engineers. A bright yellow caution tapes are draped across the garnet stairs cases keeping visitors at bay.

Typically the National Cathedral has daily Morning Prayer, Midday Eucharist, mid afternoon Intercessions and Choral Evensong. Then scattered throughout the week are an early morning Eucharist and Centering Prayer services and day-ending Compline during the summer months.

In addition the Cathedral also hosts daily tours, keeps the Good Shepherd Chapel during day light hours for personal prayer, has a fully operating Cathedral Store and has scattered organ demonstrations throughout the week. All these activities have come to a screeching halt until the structural safety of the Cathedral is known.

As a result of the Cathedral's on-going structural inspections the Martin Luther King Memorial Dedication Prayer Service, previously scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, has been moved to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Catholic basilica did not receive any damage in the recent earthquake and is able to accommodate the change in plans.

The Cathedral reports that it was the basilica which first reached out an ecumenical hand of friendship to its Episcopal sister cathedral to help the National Cathedral out of its earthquake caused time bind. The Episcopal cathedral is erroring on the side of caution when it shifted the interfaith Martin Luther King Prayer Service to the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. More than 3,000 people are expected to attend.

This is also the first time in a century that the National Cathedral has not been able to fulfill its role as the National House of Prayer when the MLK Prayer Service moves to the Catholic basilica. Never before has the Cathedral been unable to meet its country's spiritual needs, even during times of war, national distress and on-going construction.

However it appears that the Cathedral's three-day celebration to commemorate the tragic 9/11 happenings will go on as scheduled unless it is determined the Cathedral's safety has been so compromised and cannot be repaired in time to host the "A Call to Compassion". An event focusing on the terrorist attacks surrounding the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in nearby Pennsylvania as well as the crashes of United Airline Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York.

Dean Lloyd points to both these two upcoming community events as examples of how the spirituality of the National Cathedral interfaces with the world around it.

This is why we are here," he said. "This is what we do."

Normally the 3,200 seat Cathedral also has three Sunday Eucharists and one Divine Office service. The Service of Holy Communion takes place at 7:45 a.m., followed by another at 8:45 a.m., and a third service at 11:15 a.m. There is also a scheduled 4 p.m. Choral Evensong. The guest choir which is to preform this Sunday is from Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, Indiana.

It remains to be seen if the Cathedral will be open for regular worship on Sunday or will other liturgical accommodations have to be hastily made. As if this writing, the Cathedral has not made any firm decisions about its regular Sunday service schedule and it scheduled Gargoyle Tour.

With the possible landfall of Hurricane Irene, which is strengthening and aiming for the mid Atlantic coast, Cathedral organizers cannot look towards moving Sunday's services outdoors and they will have to deal with the anticipated winds and rains which could come along to help complicate their early earthquake damage assessment and cleanup. There is an honest concern that high winds and driving rains could shake loose more of the Cathedral's precariously shifted pinnacles thus causing additional damage. Washington is also experiencing post earthquake aftershocks as the earth settles down after its initial big jolt.

"It is very important that we open as soon as possible, explained the Cathedral's Director of Communications Richard Weinberg in Wednesday's news conference. "This is a House of Prayer, so on Sunday we'll do all we can. But we are just not ready to say what the solution will be ... where or when. But we are very optimistic and hopeful. If we can find a solution we will have services on Sunday."

This suspension of National Cathedral worship is the first time since 1912 when the initial liturgical service was held in the Bethlehem Chapel. Active work in the building of the Cathedral may have been derailed during the Great War (World War I) but before now Cathedral worship has never been jeopardized.

It is known that three of the four ornate finials been toppled and the other one is twisted and askew. In addition cracks have appeared in the flying buttresses around the apse , which helps to hold Cathedral walls in place. After an initial examination it was determined that the cracked load-bearing flying buttresses will need further inspection to see exactly the extent of their damage and their over all effect on the Cathedral and how best to repair them.

The first thing on the list will be stabilizing the damaged parts of the Cathedral so that a more detailed assessment can take place. Then the recarving and recutting and replacement of delicate buff-colored Indiana limestone embellishments can commence thus leading to the restoration and rebuilding of the Cathedral. However, since it took more than 80 years to build the Cathedral in the first place, it may take years to repair it.

Under girding it all will be the need for money. The National Cathedral's original price tag of $65 million was paid for entirely through private donations from around the country by those who wanted to see a national cathedral.

Within hours of the earthquake the National Cathedral set up a Help Repair the Cathedral Fund. The Cathedral found out that none of its earthquake damage is covered by insurance. As with flood insurance, earthquake insurance requires separate coverage which the Cathedral did not have. The Cathedral was considered to be in a low risk area of experiencing earthquake damage.

Now it will take many more millions to repair the earthquake damaged structure. However the Cathedral is in financial straights. It has had to cutback on staff and programs as donations have plummeted. Raising the extra needed funding to repair the Cathedral could become quite a challenge.

Interestingly, infamous Darth Vader grotesque, one of the Cathedral's 112 gargoyles seems to be intact and undamaged. Darth Vader is the dark character from the original Star Wars trilogy. The National Cathedral boasts the only known Darth Vader gargoyle on a religious building. He was added after the Cathedral held a contest for children to design a decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.

The first inkling of a "national cathedral" - a great church for national purposes - came from the mind of Washington, D.C.'s original architect, Pierre L'Enfant, a Frenchman who is the mastermind behind the design of the District of Columbia, which he called the Federal City.

In January 1893, Congress granted a charter to Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation allowing it to establishment a cathedral and institutions of higher learning. Congress has also designated the National Cathedral as a National House of Prayer in keeping with L'Enfant's desire to see a great church for national purposes established.

The National Cathedral is the primatial seat of Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the episcopal seat for the Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese Washington John Chane, who will soon become the Cathedral's interim dean as Dean Lloyd moves on to become the priest-in-charge of Boston's Trinity Church following a six year tenure as the Cathedral's dean.

The Presiding Bishop was invested at the Washington Cathedral in 2006. The Ninth Bishop-elect of Washington, Marianne Budde, is tentatively scheduled to be consecrated and enthroned in November at the Cathedral.

Three operating schools are associated with the National Cathedral. They are the National Cathedral School, a girl's day school founded in 1900. Then nine years later St. Albans School was established as college preparatory school for boys. Both the National Cathedral School and St. Albans School were designed to educate the Cathedral's youthful choristers. Finally in 1933 the co-educational Beauvoir Cathedral School was founded as an early education primary school feeding into the National Cathedral School and St. Albans. None of the schools were damaged by the earthquake. The new school year will commence after Labor Day.

However it was the first Episcopal bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Henry Yates Satterlee, who set the ball rolling on building an Episcopal cathedral in the nation's capital and tapped the famed British architect George Frederick Bodley, to be of the designer the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the National Cathedral's formal name) and secured the lofty Mount St. Albans upon which it was built. The good bishop envisioned that his cathedral would take a leading spiritual role in state and world affairs.

The choice of the Bodley was brilliant. He was an English architect who specialized in the Gothic revival style for Anglican churches replete with pointed arches, flying buttresses, large windows, sweeping vaulted ceilings, majestic façades, multiple towers, columns and pinnacles. Bodley became the leading ecclesiastical architect in mid to late 19th Century England.

Bodley designed the National Cathedral along with fellow Englishman Henry Vaughan, who is credited with bringing the English Gothic architectural style to The Episcopal Church - the American branch of the Anglican Communion in the New World. At that period of time the Church of England was being influenced by the Oxford Movement and Gothic Revival -- as an style of church architecture - had an intrinsic appeal which was considered more "spiritual" and "traditional" than the more politically-based American Renaissance style which was sweeping the country at the turn of the 20th Century.

The National Cathedral became the United States' second largest cathedral, second only to the 121,000 square foot Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, which may lay claim to being the largest cathedral in the Anglican Communion. In addition, the National Cathedral is also the third tallest building in Washington, DC, being 12 feet taller than Capitol itself, but being edged out by the Old Post Office Pavilion's clock tower and the Neo-Byzantine architecturally designed Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

However, the tallest structure in the District of Columbia is the towering 555 foot tall Washington Monument obelisk. The Washington Monument, too, received structural damage in Tuesday's earthquake.

The Cathedral also is also listed America's the third most favorite architectural structural coming behind the art deco Empire State Building and Gregorian-style White House.

---Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline