In the 1920s, the rector of an Episcopal church in The Plains, Dr. Edmund Lee Woodward, began spending summers at a family home in Orkney Springs in the Shenandoah Valley. In a serene spot at the foot of Great North Mountain, Woodward felt a call to worship—there in the woods, 15 miles from the nearest Episcopal church. For two summers, he and local workmen moved rock with horsepower and bare hands, assembling an outdoor sanctuary in a natural amphitheater stone by stone.
Woodward’s creation was consecrated in August 1925 as the Cathedral Shrine of the Transfiguration, the only Episcopal cathedral in Virginia and even still the only open-air Episcopal cathedral in the country.
The sacred space included a bell tower, and it’s there, a century later, where Kevin Moomaw pulls the bell’s rope to sound the morning wake-up alarm.
“My grandfather and my father would be upset at me if I didn’t ring the bell,” says Moomaw, executive director of Shrine Mont, the retreat and conference center of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia that developed from Woodward’s mountain getaway. Tradition and family run deep at Shrine Mont; Moomaw’s grandfather and father preceded him as directors.
Shrine Mont has evolved far beyond those first few cottages of summering Episcopalians into a sprawling retreat that is open to all. Though the scale has changed—Shrine Mont now attracts more than 15,000 guests each year—the mission remains largely the same: an opportunity for physical and spiritual renewal in a setting of pastoral splendor. They also still fry the chicken in sizzling cast-iron skillets.
Shrine Mont remains, as Woodward described, “a place apart.”
Shrine Mont encompasses more than 1,000 acres of hiking trails, mountain views, and not-too-rustic accommodations. Mineral-rich springs first made the area a tourist destination in the 1800s. The old Orkney Springs Hotel, a magnificent, four-story structure with wraparound porches built in 1873, is now known as The Virginia House, having been acquired by Shrine Mont and fully renovated in the 1980s.
Shrine Mont hosts church retreats, family reunions, and those simply in search of escape. There are camps for kids, art workshops, and the annual Shenandoah Valley Music Festival. Open April–November, Shrine Mont’s public services are held at the outdoor cathedral on Sundays.
Though owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Shrine Mont receives no funding from the diocese.
“I think that’s what saved it … Shrine Mont makes its own way,” says Moomaw’s aunt, Carolyn Moomaw Chilton. She and her husband, John, serve as Shrine Mont’s volunteer archivists. For the centennial, they authored a book, Even the Stones Will Shout: Shrine Mont at 100 (Lot’s Wife Publishing Company, 2025).
The Chiltons have deep family connections to Shrine Mont—it’s where they first met in 1971, working summer jobs in the kitchen.
Plus, Carolyn’s father was Wilmer Moomaw, the beloved longtime director of Shrine Mont, who had grown up in Orkney Springs and went to work at Shrine Mont in the 1930s after high school. As he performed manual labor and administrative tasks, he became Woodward’s protégé. After Woodward died in 1948, Wilmer, who was neither clergy nor Episcopalian but knew well the hospitality business and the community, was appointed director.
When Wilmer retired in 1988, his eldest son, Dick, was appointed executive director, and another son, John, became assistant director. In 2007, after they retired, Dick’s son Kevin, and his wife, Mary, who is program director, stepped in, inspired to keep the traditions of Shrine Mont and family going.
“The world needs a place like this,” Kevin says.
Shrine Mont is well-positioned for the next 100 years, having launched an ambitious capital campaign to raise more than $15 million to refurbish and expand facilities, as well as to grow its endowment.
Leading the campaign is Churchill J. “Kirk” Gibson IV, who grew up at Shrine Mont and says his role as director of development is his dream job. His father served as Shrine Mont’s chaplain, and his great-grandfather, an Episcopal bishop, set Shrine Mont’s establishment in motion when he began bringing his family to Orkney Springs in 1902. One of his daughters would marry Woodward, and his cottage, Tanglewood, would become the heart of Shrine Mont after his death. Woodward even placed the Shrine of the Transfiguration where the bishop liked to rest on a bench between a chestnut and a pine, praying.
“It’s a joy to be back,” Gibson says.
And out under the cathedral’s sun-kissed, open-air forest canopy, the joy is for all. ShrineMont.com
This article originally appeared in the April 2026 issue.
