11 February 2023

Praying in Ordinary Time
with USPG: 11 February 2023

The Cathedral of the Virgin Spiliotissas and Saint Vlassis and Saint Theodora overlooks the harbour of Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Before today becomes a busy day, I am taking some time for prayer and reflection early this morning.

These weeks, between the end of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, are known as Ordinary Time. We are in a time of preparation for Lent, which in turn is a preparation for Holy Week and Easter.

In these days of Ordinary Time before Ash Wednesday later this month (22 February), I am reflecting in these ways each morning:

1, reflecting on a saint or interesting person in the life of the Church;

2, one of the lectionary readings of the day;

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

The shrine of Saint Theodora is to the right, behind the iconostasis in the cathedral in Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Agios Vlassis or Saint Blaise, an Armenian miracle worker and martyr, and Saint Theodora (815-867), the empress who brought to end the conflicts and divisions of the iconoclastic heresy, both have their feast days today (11 .February).

These two saints are celebrated together in Corfu in Greece, where the Cathedral of the Virgin Spiliotissas and Saint Vlassis and Saint Theodora.

Corfu’s most-visited church is the Church of Saint Spyridon, with the relics of Saint Spyridon and a landmark bell tower. But the cathedral has served the Diocese of Corfu, Paxos and the Diapontian Islands since 1841 and was built in 1577 on the site of a much earlier church.

The Cathedral of the Virgin Spiliotissas and Saint Vlassis and Saint Theodora stands on a small square at the top of marble steps looking out over the harbour of Corfu and across to the Ionian Sea. It is one of the many beautiful churches in the Old City, but is often difficult for visitors to find in the labyrinth of narrow streets and warren of side alleys.

Even then, the impressive marble stairway and the purple façade of the cathedral with a decorative sunburst surrounding the rose window are only appreciated by stepping out of the cathedral and down into Mitropolis Square to which it gives its name.

The Diocese of Corfu traces its history to two disciples of Saint Paul, Jason of Tarsus and Sosipatrus of Achaea (see Acts 17: 5-9 and Romans 16: 21). The Bishops of Corfu took part in ecumenical councils from 325 to 787, originally as suffragans of Nicopolis and later of Kephalonia.

The diocese was transferred from the oversight of Rome to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the eighth century, became an archbishopric in the 10th century, and became a metropolitan see later in the 11th century.

After Corfu fell to a Western alliance of the Genoese, Venetians and Angevins in 1204, a Roman Catholic archbishopric was established on the island. Under Roman Catholic rule, the Orthodox people of Corfu were served by a head priest (protopapas), who were often in episcopal orders.

However, the Orthodox Diocese of Corfu was not restored until 1800, following the fall of Venice in 1797 and the formation of the Septinsular Republic.

Until the Ionian Islands were united the modern Greek state in 1864, the Diocese of Corfu remained under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Since then, it has been integrated into the Church of Greece.

The cathedral was built as a church in 1577 on the site of an older church dedicated to Agios Vlassis or Saint Blaise, an Armenian miracle worker and martyr whose feast is celebrated today (11 February).

The new church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary Spiliotissas after the destruction of an older church with the same name. The name Spiliotissa is derived from spilia, meaning cave, a reference to an older church at a cave at the foot of the New Fortress.

The cathedral is a three-aisled church built in a Baroque style that is typical of many churches in the Ionian islands, and with many Renaissance details and features.

Like all Greek Orthodox cathedrals, Corfu Cathedral is filled with icons, treasures and large chandeliers. But here too is a carved wooden iconostasis or icon screen and important paintings from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, Byzantine icons like the Panagia Dimossiana, painted in the 15th century on both sides, icons by Mikhailis Damaskinos from Crete, Emmanouil Tzanes and Panayiotis Paramythiotis, and three remarkable but dark paintings of Old Testament scenes.

When I visited the cathedral, I was invited behind the icon screen to see and reverence the most celebrated relic in the church, the shroud-wrapped body of the Empress Saint Theodora (Θεοδώρα), kept in a lined silver sarcophagus in a shrine on the right-hand side of the iconostasis.

Saint Theodora (815-867) was empress and wife of the emperor of the Byzantine, Theophilos. She lived during the conflicts and divisions of the iconoclastic heresy, and she brought that conflict to an end in the Great Church of Aghia Sophia in Constantinople on 11 March 843, an event celebrated in the Orthodox Church as ‘the Triumph of Orthodoxy.’

Her husband Theophilos was an iconoclast, but Theodora held fast to the veneration of icons she kept in her private rooms in the imperial palace.

One story recalls how a servant witnessed her venerating her icons and reported her to the emperor. When her husband confronted her, she stated that she had merely been ‘playing with dolls.’ Two of her icons are kept at the monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos to this day and are referred to as ‘Theodora’s Dolls.’

When her husband Theophilos died on 20 January 842 at the age of 29, Theodora became the regent for her son Michael. She called a council chaired by the Patriarch Methodius, at which the veneration of icons was finally restored and the iconoclastic clergy were deposed.

Theodora died sometime after the murder of her son Michael in 867. She was recognised as a saint because of her zeal for the restoration of icons. Her body and the body of the island’s patron saint, Saint Spyridon, were moved to Corfu after the Fall of Constantinople.

Saint Theodora’s feast day is 11 February – the same day as feast of Saint Vlassis, and they both share the dedication of the cathedral.

The relics of Saint Theodora the Empress are carried in procession through the streets of Corfu on the first Sunday of Great Lent, celebrated in the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. On the same day, the church distributes pieces of watermelon in remembrance of a miracle attributed to Saint Vlassis, who cured the children of Corfu of a disease of the throat.

Inside Corfu Cathedral … built in 1577 and a cathedral since 1841 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 8: 1-10 (NRSVA):

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

The gallery at the west end of the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary for the past week has been ‘Christianity in Pakistan.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Nathan Olsen.

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

Let us give thanks for the witness of the Church in Pakistan and its passion to educate and train its clergy and laity. May we be inspired by their example and never take our freedom for granted.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Looking out to the harbour and the Ionian Sea from the steps in front of the cathedral in Corfu

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 bust of Patriarch Athenagoras outside Corfu Cathedral … he was Metropolitan of Corfu in 1922-1930 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Jewish community in
Northampton and a synagogue
dating back to the 1880s

The synagogue on Overstone Road, Northampton, was built in 1965-1966 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Northampton last week, I visited both the site of the mediaeval synagogue on Sheep Street, and the modern 1960s synagogue on Overstone Road.

Jews have lived in Northampton since mediaeval times, with a synagogue and cemetery in Northampton. The first record shows Jews living in Northampton in 1159, and the Jewish community there expanded until all Jews were expelled from England in 1290.

Jews were allowed to return to England in 1656, but did not return to Northampton until the mid-19th century. There is no firm evidence of Jews settling in Northamptonshire before 1850, although the names of some individuals living in the town before 1850 suggest they may have had Jewish ancestry.

Barnard Moses Levy was living in Northampton in 1770. Benjamin Levi was the proprietor of the mail coach at Northampton in 1793-1798, and he owned buildings in Horsemarket, Northampton, as well as the Admiral Hood in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. The Revd Moses Marcus, who was described as ‘formerly a Jew’, was the Vicar of Saint Sepulchre’s, Northampton, in 1822-1823 and published a Hebrew grammar in 1825.

Adolph Gonski (1807-1893), who was born in Posen, appears to be the first Jew to have lived in Northampton in the 19th century more than fleetingly. His naturalisation papers show he was in Northampton in 1843, and by 1853 he was living in Northampton ‘for ten years past’. He was a general dealer in Sheep Street, and his business partner, Joseph Davis (1819-1906), married Gonski’s sister, Pauline (1827-1895).

The next Jew to have an impact on life in Northampton was Major Samuel Isaac (1812-1886), an army contractor who has a shoe factory in Campbell Square. He presented the fountain in the Market Square in 1863 to commemorate the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra. The fountain was dismantled in 1962. His brother Saul Isaac (1823-1903), MP for Nottingham, was the first Jew to be elected a Conservative MP.

Another early Jew living in Northampton was David Hatchwell (1820-1878) who was born in Gibraltar. He lived the last year of his life on Billing Road.

Meanwhile, some time after 1855, an estate at Ashton, near Oundle, was bought by Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild. In 1871, Rothschild owned 1,772 acres in Northamptonshire and in 1874 Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, Anthony de Rothschild and Mayer Amschel de Rothschild were landowners in Ashton and Lutton parishes. Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1808-1879) was the first professing Jew in England to sit and vote in House of Commons (1858).

The Ashton estate was given to Nathaniel ‘Charles’ Rothschild (1877-1923) by his father as his country residence. Charles Rothschild was, in 1902, the first Jew in the county to be appointed a magistrate, and was appointed High Sheriff for Northamptonshire in 1905. Victor Rothschild (1910-1990), banker and scientist, played cricket for Northamptonshire.

George Leopold Michel (1834-1911), a leather merchant, is regarded as the main founder of the Northampton Hebrew Congregation. He was born in Merxheim, and his naturalisation papers in 1880 show he was then living in Northampton for 20 years. He was the inspiration for setting up regular religious services (1885), for arranging the purchase of the synagogue building (1890), and for securing, with Phineas Hayman, in 1902, a small plot in the municipal cemetery on the Towcester Road for Jewish burials.

By 1920, GL Michel & Sons was run by the three brothers Montague, Henry and Leon Michel. George Michel’s daughter, Ditta, was the first person in Northampton to run a typewriting school, established in 1892.

Other key figures in founding the Northampton Hebrew Congregation include Morris Moss (1855-1925), was one of the founders of the Northampton Liberal Club, and Phineas Hayman, a shoe manufacturer based in the Billing Road in 1889.

Inside the synagogue on Overstone Road, Northampton

The persecution of Jews in Russia intensified after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and several Jews from Tsarist Russia soon arrived in Northampton, so that a regular congregation began to form in the 1880s.

The ‘Laws, Rules, and Regulations’ of the Northampton Hebrew Congregation were signed in 1888, giving the community formality, and a building in Overstone Road was bought in 1890. The building may have been built about 1877, and had been used by the ‘New Church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation’ or Swedenborgians.

The synagogue was consecrated by the Chief Rabbi, and the first wedding there took place later in 1890. A section of the Towcester Road municipal cemetery was set aside for the burial of Jews, and in 1902 Morris Kuyaski, a tailor, was the first Jew buried in consecrated ground in Northamptonshire for over 600 years.

The brothers Saul and Hyman Doffman arrived in Northampton in 1900. They were master tailors, with a shop at the corner of the Market Square and Abington Street, known as ‘Doffman’s Corner,’ and another shop in Gold Street. Saul Doffman was elected president of the Chamber of Trade, and in 1934 he was elected a town councillor, the first of two Jews in the town to have been elected.

Leo Blake (1891-1984), who arrived in 1920, became treasurer and secretary of the congregation, and the founder of the Northampton Council of Christians and Jews. In the inter-war years, several Jews were market traders, businessmen, shopkeepers and employers.

Some Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution began arriving in Northampton from 1933. Some refugees who had only settled briefly in London, were evacuated to Northampton, and the host Jewish community strained to provide a welcome and to support the refugees and evacuees. A hostel for refugees and was established by Isidore Marx, himself a refugee from Germany.

The refugees included Hugo Hainebach (1898-1986) from Germany, who set up a tannery in Earls Barton, and the evacuees included David Winnick, later Labour MP for Croydon South (1966-1970) and Walsall North (1979-2017).

Arthur Katz (1908-1999) arrived in England as a refugee from Germany in 1933. Along with Philip Ullman, his relative and also a refugee, they established a toy factory (Mettoy, later Corgi) in Northampton. Hans Wreschner, another refugee, founded the Deanshanger Oxide Works, manufacturing dyes, and became chair of South Northamptonshire district council.

A few local Jews were also categorised as ‘enemy aliens’, and were moved to internment camps on the Isle of Man in 1940.

By October 1941, there were over 430 Jewish children in the county: rabbis cycled from village to village. A Jewish Congregation was formed in Kettering in January 1941, with over 100 people attending its first meeting. A Zionist Society was formed in Northampton in 1940, followed by a Jewish Youth Centre, a kosher canteen, a soldier’s canteen, and a Jewish Forces Centre.

Rabbi Louis Isaac Rabinowitz lived in Northampton before becoming an army chaplain at El Alamein in 1942. He was later Chief Rabbi of South Africa and then Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.

The Northampton and County Independent reported in December 1943 that 1,000 Jewish civilians and servicemen attended the Chanukah festival at the Town Hall.

Three Northampton cinemas in the post-war years, the Ritz and the Tivoli, were owned and managed by Myer and Sydney Cipin. Warren Julius Wolff, chairman of Giesen and Wolff Ltd, a fine arts publishing company, moved to Northampton from London during World War II, and later helped with the cost of rebuilding the synagogue in Overstone Road in 1965.

After World War II, there was an uninterrupted series of ministers. Between 1945 and 1965, the size of the congregation numbered around 300 individuals. The last locally resident officiant, Harold Silman (1920-2002), retired in 1992 after 21 years’ service.

The Torah scrolls in the synagogue in Northampton

The synagogue building bought in 1890 was a corrugated iron building. It was used until 1964 when it was demolished and it was replaced in 1965 by the present synagogue. It was built on the same site, and was consecrated on 4 September 1966 by Dayan Moshe Swift (1907-1983).

A commemorative service and celebration to recognise the 125 years was held on 13 October 2013 and was attended by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. Today, this is a provincial synagogue under the aegis of the Chief Rabbi.

The community continues to play an important role in Jewish religious and cultural life, and the membership is drawn from a wide age range and a variety of nationalities.

Further Reading:

Michael Jolles, ‘The Presence of Jews in Northamptonshire,’ Northamptonshire Past and Present, No 57 (2004), Northamptonshire Record Society, pp 54-68.

Shabbat Shalom

There has been a synagogue on Overstone Road, Northampton, since 1890 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)