08 October 2022

Praying in Ordinary Time with USPG:
Saturday 8 October 2022

Saint Saviourgate Unitarian Church, the earliest surviving ‘nonconformist’ chapel in York, dates from 1693 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

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

Throughout this week and last, I have been reflecting each morning on a church, chapel, or place of worship in York, where I stayed in mid-September.

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 York;

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

Saint Andrew’s Evangelical Church, Spen Lane, is the home of a congregation of ‘open’ Plymouth Brethren (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Luke 11: 27-28 (NRSVA):

27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ 28 But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church on Priory Street, near Micklegate Bar, was built in 1879 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

‘Nonconformists’ and ‘Dissenters’ in York:

This series of reflections on York churches concludes this morning as I look at five buildings that represent the ‘Nonconformist’ and ‘Dissenting’ tradition in York: the Unitarian Chapel, Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, York Baptist Church, the Friargate Quaker Meeting House, and Saint Andrew’s Evangelical Church.

Saint Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel is the earliest surviving ‘nonconformist’ chapel in York. The early presence of ‘nonconformists’ and ‘dissenters’ in York can be traced back to the Puritans of the early and mid-17th century. After the Caroline restoration and within a decade of the ejection of 1662, five men were licensed in York as independent preachers in 1672, and several houses were licensed for worship.

By 1676, 161 ‘dissenters’ were recorded in York. Sir John and Lady Hewley, Lady Watson and Lady Lister used their influence to protect Ralph Ward and other dissenting ministers, and favoured both Presbyterians and Independents or Congregationalists equally.

After Ward died in 1691, his congregation began building Saint Saviourgate Chapel, also known as Lady Hewley’s Chapel, and it was registered in 1693. The building is in the form of a Greek cross, with each limb equal in area to the central intersection.

Lady Hewley, one of the original benefactors of the chapel, made an allowance to the minister during her lifetime and made provision for this allowance to continue after her death.

A Presbyterian congregation continued to attend the chapel until 1756, when the trustees of the Hewley Charity appointed Newcome Cappe as the minister, despite vocal opposition. He introduced Arianism and during his ministry the congregation declined, leaving only a small number who had adopted his views. Later, the chapel became Unitarian.

The Hewley Charity became the subject of legal action in the 1830s. After protracted litigation, the trustees of the charity were removed in 1836, and the minister’s stipend was no longer augmented from Lady Hewley’s charity.

The Unitarian use of the chapel was not affected and there was an average Sunday attendance of 120 in 1851. The Revd Charles Wellbeloved (1769-1858), principal of Manchester College, York – now Harris Manchester College, Oxford – and a noted local antiquary, was minister of the chapel in 1801-1858.

However, the loss of Lady Hewley’s endowments left the congregation struggling financially. Ministers quickly came and went or combined their ministry with other employment. One minister, George Saville Woods, was an MP at the same time as being chapel minister.

York Unitarian Chapel is member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. The chapel is a Grade II* listed building. York Unitarians recently marked their 350th anniversary as a congregation. Services are at 11 a.m. every Sunday. The minister is the Revd Stephanie Bisby.

The Unitarian Church in York is in the form of a Greek cross, with each limb equal in area to the central intersection (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Two strands of the Nonconformist tradition in York, the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, are represented by Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church at 32 Priory Street, near Micklegate Bar.

Following a long gap after the divisions in the Presbyterian Church that became the Unitarian Church on Saint Saviourgate, Presbyterian services in York were started once again in 1873 in the Lecture Hall, Goodramgate, by a Presbyterian minister from Hull.

A site was acquired at the corner of Priory Street and Lower Priory Street, the foundation stone of Saint Columba’s Church was laid in January 1879, and the first service was held on 6 November. The building was designed to hold 700 worshippers at a time when York was a booming railway centre and a garrison town, with large numbers of Scottish and Irish workers, many with Presbyterian backgrounds. These Irish and Scottish connections are reflected in the name of Saint Columba of Iona.

The first minister was the Revd James Collie. His family presented three Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows after his death in 1912. The church is built of white brick with decorated windows and there are two main entrances approached by flights of steps. A harmonium was installed in 1881, and was replaced with a pipe organ in 1907 with a Lewis Organ that was fully restored and modernised in 2008.

The church once had a tower, but this was removed in 1949. Some of the cast-iron railings remain.

The United Reformed Church (URC) was formed 50 years ago with the union of the Presbyterian Church of England and the Congregational Church in England and Wales in 1972, joined later by the Churches of Christ (1981) and the Congregational Union of Scotland (2000).

The Revd Alison Micklem is the Minister of Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church. Sunday services are at 10:15.

There was an Anabaptist congregation in York in the mid-1640s, and there are references to Baptist preachers in York in the 1670s and 1680s. But the current Baptist presence dates from around 1800, when some Wesleyan Methodists seceded and were later known as the Unitarian Baptists after they broke with Lady Huntingdon’s Connexion, which had a chapel in College Street.

By 1816, the Unitarian Baptists were using the Congregational chapel in Jubbergate, but by the 1830s they seem to have merged with the Unitarian chapel in Saint Saviourgate.

A second Baptist society emerged in York in 1799-1802 and met in a chapel in College Street until 1806, when they bought a chapel in Grape Lane. They seem to have faded away in the mid-1830s.

Baptist services resumed in York in 1862 in a hired room in the Lecture Hall, Goodramgate. A church of 30 members was formed in 1864 and the Baptist Chapel on Priory Street opened in 1868.

York Baptist Church on Priory Street, is a stone-faced building in Gothic style, designed by William Peachey of Darlington.

The Revd John Green was appointed as pastor of York Baptist Church last March after filling the role of interim minister since September 2020. Sunday services are at 10:45 am and 6:30 pm.

Friends’ Meeting House in Friargate in the centre of York is one of three Quaker Meetings in York. Quakers have worshipped in York since 1651.

Friargate Meeting House is a modern building, but Quakers have been worshipping on the site since the early days of the Society of Friends in the mid-17th century. George Fox, the founding Quaker, visited York in 1651, when he was roughly handled and forcibly thrown out of York Minster when he delivered his own religious message after the conclusion of the sermon. Many early Quakers were imprisoned in York Castle.

The first meeting house in York was planned in 1673, and was completed the following year. Edward Nightingale lived in Far Water Lane, now Friargate, and took a 99-year lease on property adjoining his home. The property was converted into a Quaker meeting house, and by 1681 a porch, gallery and stable were added.

Quaker worship has continued in the same area ever since. The meeting house was rebuilt in 1816-1817, and a new building opened in 1885. Until the early 1970s, the pupils and staff of the two York Quaker schools in York, Bootham and the Mount, attended Sunday worship. The meeting house was rebuilt in the 1980s, incorporating elements of the old meeting house, and opened in 1981.

Meeting for Worship takes place on Sundays at 10.30 am and lasts for an hour. The meeting holds a peace vigil once a month outside Saint Michael Le Belfrey church.

Saint Andrew’s Evangelical Church on Spen Lane has been the home of a congregation of ‘open’ Plymouth Brethren since 1924. The church was rebuilt from Saint Andrew’s Church, one of the oldest churches in York. Saint Andrew’s was mentioned in the Domesday Book, and there was a church on the site in 1194.

From 1331 until 1443, the church was dependent on Saint Martin, Coney Street. The oldest surviving part of the building is the chancel, completed in 1392, while the nave was built in the 15th century.

The church was closed in 1559, and the parish was merged with that Saint Saviour, Saint Saviourgate, in 1586. Since then, the building had a variety of uses. At the start of the 18th century, it was both a stable and a brothel. From about 1730, it was Saint Peter’s School, and from 1823 it was an infant school. By then, the chancel was a ruin, but by 1850 it was rebuilt as a cottage.

Before moving to Saint Andrew’s, this group of Brethren was using rooms in Micklegate, beside the Queen’s Hotel, in 1893, and continued to meet in the Gospel Hall in Micklegate until 1921. Their new meeting place was also known as ‘The Gospel Hall’ but is now called Saint Andrew’s Evangelical Church.

Most of the mediaeval walls of the church survive, with of a mixture of magnesian limestone, reused Roman gritstone blocks and brick infill. The chancel has one original window, and the nave has two. The chancel arch survived, blocked, and there is the lowest stage of a wooden bell turret, now inside the roof.

Friends’ Meeting House in Friargate is one of three Quaker meeting houses in York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Today’s Prayer (Saturday 8 October 2022):

The Collect:

O Lord, we beseech you mercifully to hear the prayers
of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
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:

Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love is the fulfilling of the law:
grant that we may love you with our whole heart
and our neighbours as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week has been ‘Mission in a Crisis.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Father Rasika Abeysinghe, Priest in the Diocese of Kurunagala, Church of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

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

We pray for church institutions which are still recovering from the Covid pandemic. May we recognise that different countries are facing different challenges related to the pandemic.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

York Baptist Church on Priory Street opened in 1868 (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

‘Take a Pew’ … a rainbow-coloured bench in front of York Unitarian Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A ‘determination that all … shall
enjoy the blessings of the earth’

Shaking a lulav and an etrog … a figure in a shop window in the Ghetto in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

The Jewish Festival of Sukkot this year begins at sunset on Sunday evening (9 October 2022) and ends at sunset the following Sunday (16 October 2022).

Sukkot is known as the ‘Festival of Tabernacles’ or the ‘Feast of Booths,’ and it is one of the three central pilgrimage festivals in Judaism, along with Passover and Shavuot. It is traditional in Jewish families and homes to mark this festival by building a sukkah or a temporary hut to stay over in during the holiday.

The customs include buying a lulav and etrog and shaking them daily throughout the festival: the lulav is a palm branch joined with myrtle and willow branches; an etrog is a citron fruit, usually a lemon.

A sukkah is a temporary dwelling in which farmers once lived during the harvest. Today, it is also a reminder of the type of the fragile dwellings in which the people lived during their 40 years wandering through the wilderness after fleeing slavery in Egypt.

Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the sukkah and some people even sleep there as well. On each day of the holiday, it is traditional to perform a waving ceremony with the ‘Four Species’ or specified plants: citrus trees, palm trees, thick or leafy trees and willows.

On each day of the festival, worshippers walk around the synagogue carrying the ‘Four Species’ while reciting special prayers known as Hoshanot.  This takes place either after the morning’s Torah reading or at the end of Mussaf. This ceremony recalls the willow ceremony in the Temple in Jerusalem, when willow branches were piled beside the altar with worshippers parading around the altar reciting prayers.

Sukkot is a joyous and upbeat celebration, and is celebrated today with its own customs and practices.

Prayers during Sukkot include reading the Torah every day, the Mussaf or additional service after morning prayers, reciting Hallel, and adding special additions to the Amidah and Grace after Meals. There are traditional readings from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

A custom originating with Lurianic Kabbalah is to recite the ushpizin prayer to ‘invite’ one of seven ‘exalted guests’ into the sukkah. According to tradition, each night a different guest enters the sukkah followed by the other six. Each of the ushpizin has a unique lesson to teach that parallels the spiritual focus of the day on which they visit, based on the Sephirah associated with that character.

Some streams of Judaism also recognise a set of seven female shepherds of Israel, known as ushpizot or ushpizata. At times, they are listed as the seven women prophets: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Hulda and Esther. Other lists name seven matriarchs: Ruth, Sarah, Rebecca, Miriam, Deborah, Tamar and Rachel.

The interim days of Sukkot, known as hol HaMoed (חול המועד, festival weekdays), are often marked with special meals in the sukkah, when guests are welcomed.

The Shabbat that falls during the week of Sukkot, beginning next Friday evening (14 October), is known as Shabbat Hol haMoed. The Book of Ecclesiastes is read, with its emphasis on the ephemeral nature of life: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ This echoes the theme of the sukkah, while its emphasis on death reflects the time of year in which Sukkot falls, the ‘autumn’ of life.

The conclusion of Sukkot marks the beginning of the separate holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

‘Just as the etrog has a both a beautiful taste as well as a beautiful fragrance, so there are (those) who are learned and who do good deeds …’ (Midrash Vayikra Rabbah 30:12) … lemons in a restaurant in York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

A meditation on Sukkot in Service of the Heart, a prayer book I use regularly in my daily prayer and meditation, offers this Kiddush, composed by Rabbi Sidney Brichto (1936-2009), for welcoming Sukkot:

‘The Festival of Sukkot teaches us to give thanks to God for the harvest of fruit and grain and to share these and all nature’s blessings with our fellow men.

‘Let us praise God with this symbol of joy and thank him for his providence which has upheld us in our wanderings and sustained us with nature’s bounty from year to year. May our worship lead us to live this day and all days in the spirit of this Festival of Sukkot with trust in God’s care, with thanksgiving for his goodness, and with determination that all … shall enjoy the blessings of the earth.’

‘Sometimes I sing the psalms of Hallel. Sometimes I sip coffee’ (Rabbi Rachel Barenblat) … sipping coffee in Great Linford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

On her blog Velveteen Rabbi, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat shared this poem for Sukkot some years ago [29 September 2018]:

Small scenes from a sukkah

I got a new sukkah this year.
A simple white metal frame.
Three canvas walls with windows in them.
Cornstalks overhead, twined with autumnal garlands.

In the mornings, when it is not raining, I sit here
and watch the morning light move across the valley.
Sometimes I sing the psalms of Hallel.
Sometimes I sip coffee.

During the afternoon I listen to the wind rustle the cornstalks
and the tinsel garlands overhead.
Every now and then I listen to a small plane overhead,
or a flock of geese.

As afternoon gives way to evening,
the sky goes through its rapid costume change.
If I’m paying attention at the right moment
I can see it happen.

Once evening falls
the sukkah gleams
on my mirpesset,
a little house filled with light.

Shabbat Shalom

‘The Festival of Sukkot teaches us to give thanks to God for the harvest of fruit and grain and to share these and all nature’s blessings with our fellow men’ (Rabbi Sidney Brichto) … a harvest wreath on a front door in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)