FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Christendom College unveiled the world’s largest censer that hangs from a ceiling on June 14.

The college publicly swung the silver-plated brass botafumeiro for the first time at its Summer Consortium after a vespers service at the college’s Christ the King Chapel.

The large censer provides “an opportunity to glorify Christ the King in a significant way,” said Zachary Smith, director of communications at Christendom College.

The botafumeiro pays tribute to the famous botafumeiro at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where St. James the Apostle is buried and where the tradition first originated in the 12th century.

According to Smith, the new botafumeiro honors the college’s Spanish roots. The founder of Christendom College, Warren Carroll, led institutes in Spain where many future professors and benefactors of Christendom met before the college’s founding in 1977.

Timothy O’Donnell, Christendom College’s outgoing president, said he was in awe seeing the famed botafumeiro during a Spanish pilgrimage.

“The botafumeiro is such a beautiful part of the history of Christian pilgrimages,” O’Donnell said. “We want to give people a deeper appreciation of Catholic history and patrimony and to give honor and glory to God.”

O’Donnell said he thought a botafumeiro would be a perfect addition to the college’s new chapel, which was completed and dedicated in the spring of 2023.

According to Pat Haggerty, the project manager for Christ the King Chapel, the college had planned to install the botafumeiro for five years.

The college received the censer from Spain in February and conducted rigorous safety testing in April, Smith said.

Enzo Selvaggi, the creative director at Heritage Liturgical, designed the botafumeiro to complement the chapel’s Gothic architecture, “an architecture of transformation and elevation,” he said.

The lid of the censer resembles a cupola with Gothic arches and windows, like its Spanish inspiration, with hand-engraved or embossed details. It features four gargoyles around the base that attach to the censor’s chains. Haggerty said it took artists two years to design and create the botafumeiro.

“There’s always a childlike energy that gets poured into a project like this,” Selvaggi said. “We wanted to do the most we could possibly do and do something historic and put Christendom and their community on the map.”

Selvaggi said he wanted to show original liturgical pieces like those in Europe could still be made at a high level of quality.

“It takes a client with a vision of joy and audacity to make something like this,” Selvaggi said. “It’s really beautiful to see.”

Christendom College’s botafumeiro is 20 centimeters taller and weighs about 30 pounds, more than the current one at Santiago de Compostela. The Virginia one weighs 180 pounds.

Christendom College senior Aron Forthofer was in the group of eight men to publicly swing the botafumeiro.

“When you’re seeing the size of it, it’s so surreal and unique,” Forthofer said. “Any videos that are out there in social media do not do it justice — just the sheer size and the weight of it.”

Smith said the college did not originally plan to surpass the Spanish one in size.

“While [having a bigger botafumeiro] was not the intent, it was the result of trying to match the Gothic-inspired architecture of our chapel, resulting in the more ambitious and larger design that was ultimately created,” Smith said.

O’Donnell said the incense rising from the large censer calls to mind the image of prayers rising up to God and that prayer is the best way to honor and glorify God.

The censer is connected to a specialized rope pulley system. A group of 10 seniors called the “Guild of St. James” will be responsible for swinging the botafumeiro.

O’Donnell said the botafumeiro will only be hung for special occasions: for vespers and specific liturgical celebrations and feast days, including Palm Sunday, Easter and the Solemnity of Christ the King. Otherwise, visitors can view it on display at Christ the King Chapel.