Patrick Comerford
During my recent stay in Walsingham earlier this month, when I was a guest speaker at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited about a dozen or so churches and chapels in the area Saint Seraphim’s Pilgrim Chapel is a unique heritage site in the North Norfolk pilgrimage village, incorporating a traditional Orthodox chapel in the Byzantium style, a quiet garden, an icon gallery and a railway heritage display. The chapel is almost hidden away from the main pilgrim sites in Walsingham, on Station Road, at the highest point in the village, in the former railway station that closed in 1964.
Walsingham Railway Station was on the Wells and Fakenham Railway, later part of the Great Eastern Railway. It opened on 1 December 1857, more than half a century before the pilgrimages to Walsingham were revived. The station served the villages of Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham, and in time the line to Walsingham became known as the ‘pilgrim line’. But it closed on 5 October 1964, a victim of the Beeching cuts, when 2,000 stations and over 5,000 miles of track were closed.
The story of Saint Seraphim’s began 60 years ago when Father Mark Meyrick (later known as Faither David) and Leon Liddament came to Walsingham on 6 December 1966. They were part of the newly-formed Missionary Brotherhood of Saint Seraphim, influenced by the teachings of Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833), a Russian saint known for a life of contemplation and kindness.
Father David was born Mark Meyrick (1930-1993), the son of the Anglican Rector of Codford Saint Peter with Codford Saint Mary, Wiltshire. He had an unexpected experience at Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the Russian Cathedral in Paris, at Christmas 1952. He was received into the Orthodox Church in 1963, and was later ordained deacon and priest by Archbishop Nikodem (Nagaieff).
He came to Walsingham in 1966 to take charge of the small Orthodox chapel in the Anglican Shrine Church, at the invitation of Canon Colin Stephenson. But he found the chapel in disrepair and began looking for a better location for a church. They rented the old railway station, moved their few belongings to it in an old taxi, and got to work transforming it into an Orthodox chapel. The fabric was left almost as it was in the railway days, with the addition of an onion dome and cross on the roof.
After Father Mark and the Brotherhood of Saint Seraphim had transformed the station, the small chapel was blessed by Archbishop Nikodem in August 1967 and dedicated to Saint Seraphim of Sarov. After the blessing, the archbishop led the procession down the Anglican shrine, where the Akathist hymn to the Mother of God was sung.
When the former Poet Laureate John Betjeman, who loved Walsingham, saw the transformed station, he wrote, ‘Now is the Orient come to East Anglia!’
Father Mark left the ROCOR in 1978 for the Moscow Patriarchate under Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh because of what he saw as the ROCOR’s increasingly exclusivist and anti-ecumenical stance. He was tonsured as a monk in 1980, becoming Archimandrite David.
Father David tried to live a life of Orthodoxy that was rooted in England. He and his small community held their services mainly in English, and in their hymns and icons they explored the lives of the saints of Britain and Ireland, such as Saint Columba and Saint Alban. Father David died in 1993; Leon Liddament died in 2010.
Saint Seraphim’s has a distinctive collection of icons in the chapel and the icon gallery, including many by Father David and Leon Liddament. Their work was commissioned by churches and individuals all over the world and closer to home. Their work can also be seen in Walsingham in the Catholic Shrine’s Chapel of Reconciliation, the Orthodox Chapel in the Anglican Shrine and the Church of the Holy Transfiguration in Great Walsingham.
They used traditional methods of egg tempera painting and developed their own distinctive styles. They drew their inspiration from both Greek and Russian traditions, and also incorporated Celtic ornamentation.
The dome on the roof is a symbol of the flame of prayer from the people. There is a heritage display in the porch, including a brief history of the station.
Inside the chapel, the iconostasis or icon screen shows Christ and the Mother of God on either side of the royal doors, the four Gospel writers are below the icon of the Annunciation, while the Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel guard the way into the altar. Saint Seraphim is on the right-hand side and Saint Nicholas on the left, behind the candle holders. The cross on the right-hand wall is reminder to pray for the departed.
Saint Seraphim’s Chapel is open daily to all visitors from 9 am to 5 pm, although it closes at dusk in winter. The chapel holds services twice a year, on the winter and summer feasts of Saint Seraphim, 2 January and 19 July.
Next to the chapel is a small museum dedicated to Orthodox iconography, one of the few icon museums in the UK. It has a large collection of original icons, many painted by the Walsingham iconographers. Tours of the chapel’s icons are available by appointment and includes entry to the icon museum, the quiet garden and railway display.
The Quiet Garden is the old railway workers’ garden and has been converted into a reflective space that offers a calming and reflective space for pilgrims, visitors and the local community. It was opened to the public in June 2015 by Jonathan Meyrick, Bishop of Lynn. Volunteers care for the garden, which is open every day from 9 am to dusk.
Saint Seraphim’s Trust wishes to build on the tradition of Orthodox icon painting of Father David and Leon Liddament. The trust was formed in 2005 and bought the building from the local council in 2008. The trust aims to keep the chapel open daily for visitors and to restore the property, including the railway platform and the garden.
The trust seeks to make Saint Seraphim’s a space for the study and practice of iconography, reflecting the life and work of Saint Seraphim of Sarov through publications, literature and icons. It also aims to make its rich icon, railway and pilgrimage heritage available through exhibitions, displays and activities in the chapel museum and gallery.
During my brief visit to Saint Seraphim’s, I missed Mariamni and Marcus Plested, who have spent a sabbatical at Saint Seraphim’s, running weekend courses and residential workshops.
The University of St Andrews appointed Professor Marcus Plested as the new 1643 Chair of Divinity last month. He is not only the first Orthodox theologian to hold this position, but he is popbaly the first Orthodox scholar appointed to a senior theology post in the university’s 613-year history.
Marcus Plested has played a significant role in Orthodox-Catholic engagement. I got to know him when he was the Vice-Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and lecturing at the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge on IOCS courses at Sidney Sussex College. He later moved to the US, where he has been Professor of Greek Patristic and Byzantine Theology at Marquette University.
There is also a Greek Orthodox parish in nearby Great Walsingham. The Parish of the Transfiguration is part of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira, with the Divine Liturgy in English at 10:30 on Sundays, served by Father Christopher Knight and Father Patrick Hodson.
The Chapel of the Mother of God of the Lifegiving Spring continues to be housed in the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham and is affiliated to the Diocese of Sourozh in the Moscow Patriarchate. Father Stephen Platt, the priest appointed to the chapel, is the Rector of the Parish of Saint Nicholas in Oxford, where he lives. He travels to Walsingham twice a month to serve the Divine Liturgy in the chapel in the Shrine Church. During the pilgrimage earlier this month, Father Stephen led us once agin singing the Akathist hymn to the Mother of God in the shrine church.
