Dean and Rec­tor at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral, Rev­erend Shel­ley Ann Tenia said she was dis­ap­point­ed that the ac­tion of one de­sign­er taint­ed the pub­lic’s view of an event meant to help with the restora­tion of the Port-of-Spain church.

The church was dam­aged by a pow­er­ful earth­quake on Au­gust 21, 2018, dur­ing which the steeple of the church was bro­ken.

Three fash­ion shows were host­ed by Style­Week Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day at the An­gli­can church, to raise funds for the church’s restora­tion.

How­ev­er, sev­er­al swim­suit mod­els were cast in the show, which caused an up­roar among many who saw it as a des­e­cra­tion of a holy site.

Rev­erend Tenia ex­plained that there were guide­lines that were agreed to by the or­gan­is­er for the event when they ap­proached the church to use the venue.

She said based on her in­for­ma­tion, it ap­peared on­ly one of the de­sign­ers went against the church’s guide­lines for the event.

“I think there were about five de­sign­ers each night who show­cased their work and of those five de­sign­ers, one of those de­sign­ers dis­re­gard­ed com­plete­ly the agree­ment that we had about how things would be done as it re­lates to the de­signs to be show­cased,” said Tenia, who was present at Sun­day’s show.

She said she at­tempt­ed to stop those mod­els from go­ing on stage but was too late. She ex­plained that she had no­ticed the swim­suit mod­els just as they were prepar­ing to go on to the stage but by the time she had ar­rived back­stage, they were al­ready on.

Rev­erend Tenia said she pro­ceed­ed to speak to the event’s or­gan­is­er about the sit­u­a­tion and they, in turn, promised to speak to the of­fend­ing de­sign­er.

There was no at­tempt at that point, how­ev­er, to bring the show to a halt.

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to get a re­sponse from Style­Week Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, but on their Face­book page, a pic­ture of one of the con­tro­ver­sial de­signs was post­ed with the hash­tag #getover­it.

Tenia said the fash­ion shows were not sup­posed to dis­re­spect the place of wor­ship.

“As folks would have known post-earth­quake last year, we had to do a sig­nif­i­cant amount of re­pair which was done. But it al­so catal­ysed the need for the restora­tion of the cathe­dral which is a 200-year-old build­ing which is, in fact, a her­itage site. And if any­one comes in­to the build­ing I think you have to see for your­self, the ex­tent of the restora­tion to be done and so we al­so thought it would raise aware­ness about the need for restora­tion and al­so the need for fundrais­ing for said restora­tion,” she said.

She al­so de­fend­ed the use of the church of the fash­ion show.

“Per­sons who are cre­ative have al­ways been part of who we are at church. Who are re­spon­si­ble for our bap­tismal? Who are re­spon­si­ble for our al­tar...re­spon­si­ble for all of the aes­thet­ic in the church? And so cre­atives in fash­ion and de­sign and so are no dif­fer­ent. We fa­cil­i­tate oth­er kinds of art forms. So mak­ing space for up and com­ing cre­atives, mak­ing space for oth­ers who have been in the busi­ness for a while is some­thing we thought could be pos­i­tive and up­lift­ing and ben­e­fi­cial to every­one,” she said.

Tenia said she at­tend­ed two of the three fash­ion shows held at the cathe­dral over the week­end, on­ly miss­ing the show on Sat­ur­day night.

She said it was un­for­tu­nate that out of all the de­signs which were show­cased over the week­end, the on­ly one that got ma­jor me­dia ex­po­sure were the con­tro­ver­sial pieces.

“Those are the on­ly pho­tos be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed. None of the oth­er de­sign­er’s de­signs or none of the oth­er mod­els from any of the oth­er three days or 14 or 13 oth­er de­sign­ers, their things (haven’t) been shown. The on­ly thing be­ing shown in the me­dia both in print and on so­cial me­dia is the one per­son who dis­re­gard­ed the guide­line,” she said.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es was among the groups con­demn­ing what it called the “des­e­cra­tion of a holy place”.

It is­sued a state­ment say­ing, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Church­es views with alarm the host­ing of a fash­ion show at the Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral last week. It af­firms that the al­low­ing of the al­tar of God to be used as a fash­ion run­way is a des­e­cra­tion of a sa­cred place. In ef­fect, the house of God is a place of wor­ship and of prayer, a sa­cred place and there­fore, ought not to be used for any oth­er pur­pose.”

It added, “Matthew 21:12-13 makes this clear. It re­counts Je­sus’ anger at the use of his tem­ple for gam­bling and the mar­ket­ing of goods. It states, “Je­sus en­tered the tem­ple courts and drove out all who were buy­ing and sell­ing there. He over­turned the ta­bles of the mon­ey-chang­ers and the bench­es of those sell­ing doves. ‘It is writ­ten,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are mak­ing it ‘a den of rob­bers.’ In oth­er words, to re­it­er­ate, the church is a sa­cred place, a place of prayer and of wor­ship. It has been set aside strict­ly for the wor­ship­ping of God, for prayer. It is not to be used for any oth­er pur­pose.”

“It is al­so clear, from the verse above, that God is not pleased when his house is treat­ed dis­re­spect­ful­ly. There­fore, this fash­ion show ought not to have been al­lowed at the cathe­dral. It was a des­e­cra­tion of God’s house of prayer and wor­ship, and there­fore, in con­tra­ven­tion of the word of God.”

How­ev­er, Rev­erend Clif­ford Rawl­ins of the Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed Church ques­tioned the source of the up­roar, as he point­ed out, “If peo­ple can wear swim­suits at the beach and, the whole earth is the Lord’s where noth­ing is hid­den from him, then why not in a hu­man-made church build­ing used for a sec­u­lar pur­pose?’

He al­so ques­tioned if re­li­gious be­liefs from oth­er faiths such as Is­lam and Hin­duism in­formed the re­ac­tion to the event.

He said, “We ought not look at one through the eyes and lens­es of an­oth­er. That one ought to be seen and heard for one­self. But un­for­tu­nate­ly things can be­come too con­fused in the cross-thread­ing of val­ue sys­tems and many get lost in the all too ready hurl of so­cial me­dia ob­se­cra­tions and dep­re­ca­tions.”

The three fash­ion shows, come just over a month and a half since the church host­ed a char­i­ty boat ride to aid with the restora­tion.