19 September 2022

Praying in Ordinary Time with USPG:
Monday 19 September 2022

The University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is between the High Street and Radcliffe Square in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Today (19 September) the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship remembers Saint Theodore of Tarsus (690), Archbishop of Canterbury, with a commemoration.

Before today begins, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

This week I am reflecting each morning on a church, chapel, or place of worship in Oxford, which I visited earlier this month.

In my prayer diary this week I am reflecting in these ways:

1, One of the readings for the morning;

2, Reflecting on a church, chapel or place of worship in Oxford;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

Inside Saint Mary’s University Church, Oxford, facing the east end (Photograph Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Saint Theodore was born at Tarsus in Cilicia ca 602. He was Greek and was educated in Athens before the pope appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury. He was raised straight from being a sub-deacon to being archbishop, and immediately proved his worth by undertaking a visitation of the whole of England soon after he arrived.

He set about reforming the Church in England with the division of dioceses and called the Synod of Hertford in 673, probably the most important Church council in the land. It issued canons on the rights and obligations of clergy and religious, based on the canons of the Council of Chalcedon. It restricted bishops to working in their own diocese and not intruding on the ministry of neighbouring bishops; it established precedence within the episcopacy; and monks were to remain in to monasteries and obedient to their abbots.

Theodore was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to have the willing allegiance of all Anglo-Saxon England. He died on this day in the year 690.

Luke 8: 16-18 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 16 ‘No one after lighting a lamp hides it under a jar, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light. 17 For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light. 18 Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.’

The High Altar and sactuary in Saint Mary’s Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford

For my reflections and devotions this week, I am reflecting on a church, chapel, or place of worship in Oxford, which I visited earlier this month.

The University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in the centre of Oxford is on the north side of the High Street and the south side of Radcliffe Square and the Bodleian Library. The parish consists almost exclusively of university and college buildings.

A church has stood on the site since Anglo-Saxon times. In the early days of Oxford University, the church was part of the university, congregation met there from at least 1252, and by the early 13th century it was the seat of university government and was used for lectures and awarding degrees.

Around 1320 a two-storey building was added to the north side of the chancel — the ground floor became the convocation house used by the university, and the upper storey housed books that formed the first university library.

When Adam de Brome became rector in 1320, the church became linked to what would later become Oriel College. The college was responsible for appointing the vicar and providing four chaplains.

Saint Mary’s was the site of the trial of the Oxford Martyrs in 1555, when Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Bishop Hugh Latimer and Bishop Nicholas Ridley were tried for heresy. They burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the north. A cross set into the road marks that location on what is now Broad Street; the Martyrs’ Memorial stands at the south end of Saint Giles’.

Until the 17th century, the church was the venue for increasingly rowdy graduation and degree ceremonies, until the Dean of Christ Church, John Fell, commissioned Christopher Wren to build what became the Sheldonian Theatre.

John Wesley, who was a fellow of Lincoln College, preached in Saint Mary’s in 1738, 1741 and 1744.

John Henry Newman became the Vicar of Saint Mary’s in 1828. John Keble’s assize sermon in Saint Mary’s in 1833 is regarded as starting the Oxford Movement. Newman later resigned from Saint Mary’s and became a Roman Catholic.

John Keble’s assize sermon in Saint Mary’s Church marks the beginning of the Oxford Movement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

In the later 15th and early 16th century, the main body of the church was substantially rebuilt in the Perpendicular style, but the oldest part of the present church is the tower, which dates from around 1270. The tower provides good views across the heart of the city. It has long three light bell openings with intersecting tracery. The tower is 27 metres (90 ft) high, topped by a spire of 31 metres (101 ft), giving a total height of 58 metres (191 ft).

The Decorated spire with its triple-gabled outer pinnacles, inner pinnacles, gargoyles and statues was added in the 1320s, and said to be one of the most beautiful spires in England. Only one of the 12 statues is original, the others were by George Frampton and erected around 1894. The original statues are now in the cloister of New College.

The baroque south porch facing High Street dates from 1637 and was designed by Nicholas Stone, master mason to Charles I. It was a gift from Dr Morgan Owen, chaplain to Archbishop William Laud. It is highly ornate, with spiral columns supporting a curly pediment framing a shell niche with a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, under a gothic fan vault

The style of the porch was used as evidence at Laud’s trial. The bullet holes in the statue were made by Cromwellian troopers.

Inside, Saint Mary’s has six-bay arcades with shafted piers, and between the clerestory windows are canopied niches with archangels holding shields. The roof has traceried spandrels, the chancel has transomed windows, the sedilia is decorated with cusped arches and a frieze of vine leaves. The reredos is 15th century and contains seven ornamental canopied niches containing statues of 1933.

Restorations were carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1856-1857 and 1861-1862 and by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson in 1894.

The east window and second from east in the south aisle were designed by Augustus Pugin. The west window in the nave (1891) was designed by CE Kempe, the memorial window to John Keble is by Clayton and Bell (1866).

The Vicar of Saint Mary’s is the Revd Dr William Lamb, the Assistant Priest is the Revd Hannah Cartwright. There are two Sunday services, at 8:30am and at 10:30 am. The church is open from 9 am to 5 pm (July and August 9 am to 6 pm).

Inside Saint Mary’s Church, facing the west end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Today’s Prayer (Monday 19 September 2022, Saint Theodore of Canterbury):

The Collect:

Everlasting God,
whose servant Theodore carried the good news of your Son
to the people of England:
grant that we who commemorate his service
may know the hope of the gospel in our hearts
and manifest its light in all our ways;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Theodore and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The theme in the USPG prayer diary this week is ‘Welcoming Refugees.’ Father Frank Hegedus, Chaplain of Saint Margaret’s in Budapest, spoke to USPG about how the Church in Hungary is helping refugees fleeing Ukraine.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us give thanks for the clergy and congregation at Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church in Budapest and their efforts to help refugees.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The baroque south porch was designed in 1637 by Nicholas Stone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The West Window in Saint Mary’s University Church, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Finding a photograph from
Oxford after ten years in
a Serbian theology journal

A full-page photograph in a Serbian theological journal published ten years ago

Patrick Comerford

My morning prayer diary on my blog throughout this week is illustrated with photographs of churches and chapels in Oxford, beginning this morning with a reflection that includes Christ Church, which has a unique status as both a diocesan cathedral and a college chapel.

These photographs were taken during a visit to Oxford earlier this month, and follow a reflection on Friday evening on my visit to the Oxford Jewish Centre.

I had already been in Oxford earlier this year, when I was transferred from Milton Keynes University Hospital to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford following my stroke in March.

In the past, I have also stayed in two theological colleges in Oxford, Wycliffe Hall (2007) and Ripon College Cuddesdon (2013), when I was meeting academic colleagues who taught in similar programmes to the ones I was teaching on the BTh and MTh courses at the Church of Ireland Theological College and the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.

So, it was interesting to realise this week that one of my photographs from Ripon College Cuddesdon was used as a full-page illustration in a Serbian theological journal published in Belgrade almost ten years ago.

Bogdan Lubardić, is the author of ‘Justin Popović in Oxford 1916-1919: From Romanticised Facts to the Fact of Romantism’, a paper in Serbian Theology in the 20th Century: Research Problems and Results, edited by B Šijaković, vol 10 (Belgrade: Faculty of Orthodox Theology, 2013), pp 75-197.

Professor Bogdan Lubardić teaches philosophy in the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at Belgrade University, where he teaches the history of philosophy and the philosophy of religion, and supervises doctoral studies on the concept and meaning of religious philosophy.

Dr Lubardić’s research interests include reflection on the systemic relation of religious philosophy and Christian theology, the history of ideas in religious philosophy and theology, with a special interest in the Byzantine, Russian and Serbian legacy, and models of thought in Church doctrine.

His research has been published in Serbian, English, French, Italian and Russian. He was editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Bogoslovlje Theology (2010-2012), and is an active member of editorial boards of a number of journals, including Φιλοθεοσ (Philotheos): International Journal for Philosophy and Theology and Analogia: International Journal for Theological Studies. He has been a member of the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue.

My photograph appears as a full-page illustration on p 111.

Justin Popović (1894-1979) was an important 20th century Serbian Orthodox theologian, an archimandrite in the Ćelije Monastery, a renowed scholar on the life and work of Dostoyevsky, a writer, a vocal opponent of the communist regime in the former Yugoslavia and a critic of the pragmatic compromises the Church in Serbia had made with the political system.

He did his doctoral research on the philosophy and religion of Dostoyevsky in Oxford in 1916-1919, but his doctoral thesis was not accepted due to its radical criticism of Western humanism, rationalism, Roman Catholicism, and anthropocentrism. It was later printed in 1923 when Popović became the editor of the Orthodox journal The Christian Life. He received his doctorate in theology at the University in Athens in 1926. With colleagues from Oxford he edited the periodical The Christian Life for 20 years.

His work was a significant contribution to Orthodox theology and he is often seen as ‘the secret conscience of the Serbian Church.’ He was canonised a saint by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2010. He is one of the three most notable Serb theologians to be recognised internationally.

I do not have to explain that I cannot read Serbian, and this is not a journal that I would have come across as part of my normal, everyday reading and research.

The journal was published in 2013. But it took almost a full decade for me to find out that one of my photographs from the chapel of a theological college in Oxford had been used in this way in a theological journal in Belgrade all those years ago.

• Photograph in: ‘Serbian Theological Seminarians in Great Britain: Cuddesdon Theological College 1917–1919: Appendices and Supplements I’, in Serbian Theology in the Twentieth Century: Research Problems and Results, vol 14, Proceedings of the Scientific Conference (PBF/FOT Belgrade, 24 May 2013), ed B Šijaković, Belgrade: Faculty of Orthodox Theology 2013, pp 52-127: p 111.

Updated 5 February 2024, with full details of journal publication