Chalice, Chalice, Burning Bright

The Rev. Charles Joy was ordained in 1911 and for the next 29 years served in the Unitarian ministry, both as a parish minister and later as the administrative vice president of the American Unitarian Association. He is one of five Unitarians, including Waitstill and Martha Sharp and Robert and Elisabeth Dexter, who are considered the founding members of the Unitarian Service Committee (USC), all of whom served for a time at the organization’s office in Lisbon, Portugal, the only open port in Europe in the early 1940s and the preferred destination for millions of refugees.

On January 31, 1941, Joy wrote to Robert Dexter, who was by then the Unitarian Service Committee executive director in Boston, “I happen now to have an artist working for me. . . . Recently I asked him to work in his spare time on a symbol of our committee, which could be placed on a seal, and used in our documents. When a document may keep a man out of jail, give him standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important. . . . So Hans Deutsch went to work to design something. . . . “

Joy continued, “I have made it up into a seal, not because I have any idea of forcing this upon the committee without consulting them, but because these things cost very little here, and at least it will serve as a temporary expedient for us to use in our papers until we get something better, assuming that the committee does not like this. Personally, I like it very much. It is simple, chaste, and distinctive. I think it might well become the sign of our work everywhere . . . .”

In describing the design, Joy continued that it was “a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice.... This was in the mind of the artist.”

But there was more in the mind of the artist. In a letter to Joy, Deutsch wrote, “There is something that urges me to tell you... how much I admire your utter self denial [and] readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help. …I am not what you may actually call a believer. But if your kind of life is the profession of your faith—as it is, I feel sure—then religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and—what is more—to active, really useful social work. And this religion—with or without a heading—is one to which even a ‘godless’ fellow like myself can say wholeheartedly, Yes!”

In April 1941, the USC adopted Deutsch’s flaming chalice symbol as its seal. In 1963 the Unitarian Service Committee merged with the Universalist Service Committee, keeping the symbol of the flaming chalice for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. The flaming chalice first appeared as a symbol for the UUA on the title page of the 1976-77 UUA Directory, and has been in use ever since as a symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Since the early 1980s, the flaming chalice has been adopted by one congregation after another. It is estimated that today over 90% of Unitarian Universalist congregations have adopted this symbol. This adoption was not imposed, rather it spread organically: one congregation after another saying, “Yes!”

In his 1870 poem, Cor Cordium, the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote, “the chalice of love’s fire.”

Charles Joy was prophetic when he said, “I think it might well become the sign of our work everywhere.” And it has!