The Cherubim and Seraphim Church, United Kingdom

Abstract

Brother and Sister Adisa face the congregation, looking down the long blue-and-white painted hall in East London, over the pews of some hundred white-gowned men on their right, and the veiled heads of an equal number of sisters on their left. At the back, a group of their friends who are not members of the church sit among the visitors, the brilliant blouses and wrappers of the women crowned by stiff damask headties, which point up over the sea of prayer gowns. On a dais behind the Adisas, the chairs of ten male elders are ranged on either side of the modern altar. On the wall above, the painted inscription “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” curves over a large wooden cross, roughly wired with red strip lighting, and flanked by two fat cherubs representing the Cherubim and Seraphim.