Patrick Comerford
I spent much of today at the celebrations of Founder’s Day with the Anglican mission agency USPG and the publishers SPCK in Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly. The day celebrates the life of the Revd Dr Thomas Bray, who was commemorated in the Calendar of the Church of England on Saturday (15 February) and who was the founder of both the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, now USPG).
This year, Founder’s Day began with a celebration of the Eucharist in Saint James’s, and included reflections on the people who bring hope in the midst the ongoing conflict in the Holy Land, with an address by Dr Ruth Valerio, Advocacy Director at Embrace the Middle East. There was an opportunity too to meet many of friends during the buffet lunch that followed.
Canon Lucy Winkett, who presided at the Eucharist today, is a writer, broadcaster and musician. She has been the Rector of Saint James’s since 2010 and Priest-in-Charge of Saint Pancras, Euston Road, since 2023. She was one of the first generation of women to be ordained priest in the 1990s, and the first woman priest to be appointed to Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the author of Our Sound Is Our Wound, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book in 2010.
Saint James’s was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and was consecrated in 1684. Since then, it has had many distinguished rectors, including four future Archbishops of Canterbury: Thomas Tenison, William Wake, Thomas Secker and William Temple, who was the rector throughout World War I.
Temple’s immediate predecessor was a Liverpool-born Irish priest, Canon Joseph McCormick (1834-1914), whose father, William McCormick (1801-1878), was the MP for Derry City in 1860-1865. Joseph McCormick played Cricket for Ireland under the alias of J Bingley, the name of one of the schools he had attended, to disguise his participation from his parishioners in Dunmore East, Co Waterford. He also rowed in the Cambridge Boat in March 1856, helping to defeat Oxford in 22 minutes 45 seconds, and he was a well-known mountain climber.
Joseph McCormick was the Rector of Dunumore East, Co Waterford, before moving to England, where he was a chaplain to three successive monarch, Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. When I was working on doctoral research on Irish Anglican missionaries in South Africa, one of the people I came to know as ‘my missionaries’ was Joseph McCormick’s son, Canon (William) Patrick ‘Pat’ Glyn McCormick (1877-1940), who worked with SPG in the Transvaal in 1903-1910. Pat McCormick played cricket for Devon and had one first class match for MCC in 1907, and also played Rugby for Transvaal. He later succeeded Dick Shepherd (1880-1937) as the Vicar of Saint Martin in the Fields in London, and continued his work among the ‘down and outs.’
Another son, Joseph Gough McCormick (1874-1924) became the Dean of Manchester, and also played cricket with distinction for Norfolk 1899 to 1909, scoring four hundreds.
The Revd Donald Reeves (centre) at the Irish School of Ecumenics with Canon Patrick Comerford of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute (left) and Dr Andrew Pierce of the Irish School of Ecumenics in Dublin in 2011Many years ago, I spent a memorable day with another former Rector of Saint James’s, the Revd Donald Reeves, who died a few months ago (31 October 2024) at the of 90. He was once described by Margaret Thatcher as ‘a very dangerous man’ and by The Times as the ‘radical rector’ and ‘the most extraordinary clergyman in the Church of England.’
While he was the Rector of Saint James’s, Donald Reeves developed a reputation among Thatcher’s allies as a ‘turbulent priest’ – an eminent and honourable place to hold in Anglican tradition.
I spent a day with Donald Reeves when he visited Dublin in June 2011. By then, he was in his late 70s, but he was still working on peace-building and peace-making projects in the Balkans. He had long been a thorn in the side of the Establishment, and when he heard Thatcher’s description of him as ‘a very dangerous man’, he was ‘rather pleased … it felt like a natural title.’ It is a sobriquet that he came to wear with pride and that inspired the title of his autobiography The Memoirs of a Very Dangerous Man.
But the man who enjoyed excoriating Thatcherite dogma and episcopal complacency in the 1980s, emphasised his role as a peacemaker rather than as a troublemaker. He continued to co-direct the Soul of Europe, working at peacemaking and peace-building in the Balkans. When we met, he was visiting Dublin, preaching in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and speaking about the work of the Soul of Europe at a seminar organised by the Irish School of Ecumenics and co-sponsored by the Church of Ireland Theological Institute.
Through the Soul of Europe project, Donald Reeves spent much of his time in the Balkans, trying to build durable trust between communities only nominally at peace after terrible conflicts. He sought to help people living through post-conflict situations to realise Nelson Mandela’s words first addressed to politicians in Northern Ireland: ‘If you want to make peace do not speak with your friends, you must speak with your enemies.’
He was frustrated by the way in which ignorance of religion has become an embedded in official thinking, so that religion is seen as matter of choice and that a real illiteracy of religion has emerged. It means churches and mosques are valued only and merely as places of cultural heritage and not as living religious communities. But ‘religion is the crucible in which the “chosen trauma’ of a community is held.’
He expressed a deep-seated ‘nervousness’ about growing Islamophobia in Europe, describing it as an ‘alarming phenomenon.’
‘The Muslims are the new Jews of Europe,’ he told us.
Donald St John Reeves was born in 1934 and was educated at Sherborne School, Queens’ College, Cambridge. While he was teaching in Beirut in the 1960s, he felt called to ordained ministry, and after training at Cuddesdon Theological College he was ordained deacon in 1963 and priest in 1964. After two years as a curate, he became chaplain to Bishop Mervyn Stockwood of Southwark, who had a reputation for controversy and socialist politics.
His heyday was as the Rector of Saint James’s, Piccadilly, a space he filled with extraordinary worship, celebrated pulpit dialogues, a coffee house and street market. Those who passed through the church doors included leading international film-makers, writers, theologians and politicians.
He was the Rector of Saint James’s for 18 years (1980-1998). When he first arrived there, it was not an auspicious place. Although the church was known for society weddings, there was little evidence of a congregation rooted in the community. ‘On my arrival,’ he said, ‘I could see no justification for keeping the church open.’
The church where William Blake was baptised was in decay and facing closure. Four years later, as the church celebrated it tercentenary, he was able to tell the Guardian: ‘There’s only one thing to do with a church which is slap in the centre of London and whose congregation has dwindled ever since the 19th century brought business to where town houses used to be: you use the site and turn it into a showcase for Christianity.’
Gradually, he turned Saint James’s into a thriving institution, closely linked to local people, both rich and poor, and a place for exploring ideas. Saint James’s soon had its own orchestra, a full-time arts director, a programme of lectures called ‘Turning Point,’ and a programme called ‘Dunamais’, offering lectures, workshops and the opportunity to explore issues of personal, national and international security in the nuclear age. The church became a centre of both liturgical innovation of theological debate and radical politics. He encouraged debate across the boundaries, inviting speakers as diverse as Norman Tebbit and Tony Benn, non-believers as well as believers.
‘Jesus wasn’t exactly into garden parties. He was regarded as a nuisance,’ he said. ‘The churches shouldn’t be creating little managers of sectarian communities but should be places of dissent.’
His own challenge to Thatcherism was overt. He sparked lively debate by speaking out against the Falklands War and by helping the miners’ wives during their husbands’ bitter strike. After several brushes with Thatcher, she described him as ‘a very dangerous man’ – an acknowledgement that by then he was part of the Anglican tradition of ‘troublesome priests’ – apt to turn critical fire not only on the world but on the Church too.
Bishop Trevor Huddleston, a veteran campaigner against apartheid, who lived in the Saint James’s Vicarage for many years, was another significant influence.
Donals Reeves was made MBE in 2006 for his peace-building in Bosnia, received awards for fostering good relations between the Abrahamic Faiths, and was a Visiting Fellow in Peace Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Canon Paul Oestreicher, in a tribute in the Church Times, wrote: ‘Donald was a spiritual activist whose own “Eucharistic Prayer” (below) will tell you all you need to know about him.’
We had lunch together before he left Dublin, and I said then how I hoped we continue to hear his radical voice for many years to come. His mark is still evident today in Saint James’s, Piccadilly, with its inclusiveness, its celebration of other faith traditions, its social justice ministries to the marginalised in greater London, and its continuing work with asylum seekers.
‘Eucharistic Prayer’
We break this bread for those who love God,
For those who follow the path of the Buddha
And worship the God of the Hindus;
For our sisters and brothers in Islam,
And for the Jewish people from whom we come.
We break this bread for the great green earth;
We call to mind the forests, fields and flowers
Which we are destroying,
That one day, with the original blessing, God’s creation will be restored.
We break this bread for those who have no bread,
The starving, the homeless and the refugees,
That one day this planet may be a home for everyone.
We break this bread for the broken parts of ourselves,
The wounded child in all of us,
For our broken relationships,
That one day we may glimpse the wholeness that is of Christ.
