Chapel of the Holy Cross

The Chapel of the Holy Cross was built in 1955 in a modern architectural style, conceived by rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude as a tribute inspired partly by her admiration for the Empire State Building, and shaped to rise directly out of the red rock spur it sits on rather than beside it. It is an active Roman Catholic chapel administered by St. John Vianney Catholic Church under the Diocese of Phoenix, and Mass, confession and prayer services are held there on a weekly schedule; this is not a former or deconsecrated building kept as a monument, it is used exactly as built.

The chapel's defining feature is the 90-foot cross set into the glass facade, visible from the highway below and from much of the Village of Oak Creek side of Sedona. The building rises from a rock outcrop between two red sandstone pinnacles, with the altar wall framed by a floor-to-ceiling window that looks straight out over the Verde Valley. There is no side aisle and only a narrow row of pews, since the chapel was designed as a single small nave rather than a full parish church; most of the building's footprint is the approach ramp and the spur road up to it, not the interior itself.

Photography and quiet during services

General photography of the exterior and the altar-wall view is welcome, and it is the reason most visitors come. Flash and video are restricted while a Wednesday, Friday or Monday service is underway, and the chapel asks visitors to keep voices low the entire time it is open, service or not, since it remains an active place of prayer. The overlook terrace outside the entrance is the spot most photographers use for the view over the Verde Valley; the nave itself is small enough that a tripod is impractical during any busy hour.

The chapel is open daily from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm; the gift shop keeps slightly shorter hours, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, and is confirmed closed on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. A general holiday closure list beyond those two dates is not published on any page this guide could confirm; if you are visiting on a minor holiday, call ahead.

Wednesdays and Fridays carry the fullest prayer schedule: Eucharistic Adoration from 12:00 to 3:00 pm, Confession from 1:00 to 2:30 pm, and Mass at 3:00 pm. Mondays add a Taizé Prayer Service at 5:00 pm. The parish also holds a special Healing Mass on the first Friday of each month and posts Prayer Teams on site the first and third Fridays. A Friday livestream runs on the parish's Facebook and YouTube channels for anyone who cannot attend in person.

• Chapel: 9:00 am-4:45 pm daily
• Gift shop: 9:30 am-4:30 pm daily, closed Christmas Day and Easter Sunday
• Wed & Fri: Adoration 12:00-3:00pm, Confession 1:00-2:30pm, Mass 3:00pm
• Mon: Taizé Prayer Service 5:00pm; first Friday: Healing Mass

One honesty note: the chapel's own website returned an HTTP 403 error to a direct automated fetch on the day this page was checked, and the hours and Mass schedule above were confirmed through an alternate retrieval of the same official page rather than a live browser visit. They match the parish's own published text, but this is flagged for re-verification: if you are planning a visit around a specific service, call the parish office at (928) 282-7545 or check chapeloftheholycross.com/hours directly before you drive up.

The chapel sits at the top of a short, steep, narrow spur road off Chapel Road, and the lot at the top holds a limited number of cars; nowhere near enough for the volume of visitors the site draws on a sunny afternoon. When that lot fills, cars queue on the single-lane spur itself, which has no real shoulder to pass on, so a full lot does not just mean no parking, it means the road up is temporarily blocked in both directions until someone leaves.

The practical overflow is the pullout area near the bottom of the spur, off the main approach road, where visitors park and walk up the remaining stretch; a few minutes on foot rather than a queue in a car. Arriving at opening (9:00 am) or in the final hour before close gives the best odds of a top-lot space; midday on any weekend is when the spur backs up worst. No official page publishes an exact capacity figure for the lot, so treat 'small' as the operative word rather than a number.

Because the chapel has one small nave and no galleries to move through, the time range here is narrower than at a larger attraction; the variable is really the parking spur, not the visit itself.

- It is an active parish chapel, not a historic monument kept for visitors. Mass, Confession and Adoration run on a real weekly schedule under St. John Vianney Catholic Church and the Diocese of Phoenix, and services take priority over sightseeing [chapel's own hours and Mass schedule, read in Q3 2026]. - The gift shop keeps different hours than the chapel itself; 9:30 am to 4:30 pm against the chapel's 9:00 am to 4:45 pm; so a visit right at opening or closing may find the chapel open and the shop still closed or already shut. - The parking spur is the real bottleneck, not the chapel. A small lot at the top of a single-lane road means a full lot blocks the road itself, not just the parking; walking up from the lower pullout is often faster than waiting. - The chapel's own website has been unreliable to reach directly at times, including on this page's own research date; the parish's phone number, (928) 282-7545, is the dependable fallback for hours or Mass-time questions. - No official page publishes a general holiday closure list. Only Christmas Day and Easter Sunday are separately confirmed for the gift shop; any other holiday should be checked by phone rather than assumed [parish office, (928) 282-7545].

The chapel sits close enough to Bell Rock and the Village of Oak Creek that all three fit into one morning without much backtracking, and its short visit time makes it an easy add-on to a longer hiking day rather than a destination in its own right. The things to do hub ranks the full list of Sedona attractions by time needed, and the fixed-day itineraries; Sedona in 1 day, Sedona in 2 days; both place the chapel in a specific morning or afternoon slot rather than leaving it to chance.