It's called a Bishops chair, Google that term, and look at the images.

It's where the priest or lector sits when not busy with his or her part of the service :-)

My church's bishop's chair is reserved for the bishop. Our priest sits on a small embroidered chair in front of a prie-dieu. The lectors sit in the pews until their reading.

Thank you all very much or the information. Does anyone have any idea how old the chair might be?

We're Episcopalian...our bishop or his designee does one visitation to our small parish each year. He'd have to come more often to get his own chair :-)

kswl it is good to share- even chairs. lol

I think from my internet research that the chair dates maybe from the 1850's. It has springs and the castors are porcelain. I can't find any Internet images of chairs like it, but I found two that had some of the same design elements and they dated 1858.

I hope it is not sacrilegious to have covered the seat in teal fabric. :) I used the same fabric to add some teal stripes to some of my couch pillows. I don't think I am a good decorator but it was fun.

looks like you have 2 awesome decorator items on your rug!

I love the color----and think its high time the church updated its own liturgical colors, lol! That cushion would give our altar that needed "pop" of color ;-)