The reredos was commissioned by the third Bishop of Sydney, Bishop Barry, and carved of translucent cream English alabaster by the sculptor Thomas Earp, under the supervision of the well-known Gothic Revival architect J. L. Pearson in 1886. The subject matter of the three pictorial panels, as originally created, were: at the centre, the Crucifixion; to the left, the Resurrection; to the right, the Ascension. To either side were the figures of Moses and Elijah. In 1887 there was objection at synod to the representational nature of the reredos and in particular to the central Crucifixion on the grounds that it might be seen as idolatrous. The Crucifixion was replaced, at the expense of the objectors, by the present scene of the Transfiguration. Both depictions of Moses, like the famous sculpture by Michelangelo in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome show him with horns, a symbolic attribute due to a mistranslation in the Vulgate Bible.