Ten countries I have visited in 2018

Gondolas tied up and waiting for the tides to fall at Rialto Bridge, just a five minute walk from the Palazzetto San Lio in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

Patrick Comerford

In previous years, in my end-of-year reviews at the end of December, I have often summarised the year’s events in my life, as well providing my own commentary on the year in news, sport, and church life.

However, newspapers and television stations provide substantial summaries of the past year at this time of the year, and the consequences of ‘Brexit’ and the Trump presidency have been devastating and depressing at one and the same time throughout 2018.

Instead, I have decided to end the year on note of celebration over the next few days, looking back at ten countries I have visited this year, ten cathedrals I have visited in Ireland, ten synagogues I have visited across Europe, and ten places I have visited in Ireland this year.

The wisteria was already fading in Hall Court in Sidney Sussex College when I visited Cambridge this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

1, England:

As with every year, I have visited England throughout the year. I have stayed twice in London during two-day residential meetings of the trustees of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel): at the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in Limehouse in the East End in January, and in November in the Kairos Centre in south-west London, close to the campuses of Roehampton University and overlooking Richmond Park.

I was also in London for meetings of USPG’s trustees in May and September, and at the meetings of USPG trustees and council and the annual USPG conference at the High Leigh Conference Centre near Hoddesdon in July, and a regional meeting of USPG volunteers and supporters in Birmingham at the end of November.

I also visited Lichfield three times this year: for two days of retreat and reflection and to celebrate my birthday in January, to lecture on the Wyatt architectural dynasty in April at the invitation of Lichfield Civic Society, and again in November, for a short visit to Lichfield Cathedral and the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital.

I missed the annual summer school organised in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, but I had a short visit to Cambridge in early July, while some of the fading wisteria could still be seen in the courts of Sidney Sussex College.

The arcades around the bailey seen from the Chapel of Saint Sebastian in the Fort de Salses, near Perpignan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

2, France:

In May, I spent a few days in the south of France, staying in Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, a coastal town near Perpignan. Although I had been to Paris half-a-dozen times or more in the past, this was my first time back in France since 2006, and my first time to visit the South of France.

In Perpignan, I visited the Palace of the Kings of Majorca (Palais des Rois de Majorque), the Cathédrale St-Jean, with its Gothic architecture, its wrought-iron bell tower and its cloistered cemetery, and the statue of the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí facing la Gare de Perpignan, which Dalí proclaimed it to be the ‘Centre of the Universe’ after he experienced a vision of cosmogonic ecstasy there in 1963.

Beyond Perpignan, I visited Collioure on the Côte Vermeille, close to the French border with Spain at the Pyrénées. Collioure, with its typical Mediterranean bay, attracted several Fauvist artists who made it their centre in the early 20th century. They were inspired by the colours of Collioure, its castle, mediaeval streets, and the lighthouse converted into the church of Notre-Dame-des-Anges. Almost 100 reproductions of works by Matisse and Derain are exhibited around the port and harbour in the very same place where they painted the originals in the early 20th century.

I also visited the hills and narrow streets of Elne, including the Cathedral of Sainte-Eulalie-et-Sainte-Julie, and the Fort de Salses, also known as the Forteresse de Salses, an impressive and massive Catalan fortress 20 minutes from Perpignan, off the road to Narbonne.

Tucholskystraße is close to the New Synagogue in Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

3, Germany:

I passed through Frankfurt Airport twice (4 and 9 April), on my way to and from Thessaloniki to experience the celebrations of Orthodox Easter in the northern Greek city.

Both stopovers allowed time to eat, but I was back in Germany later in the year (11 to 14 September), when I spent three or four days in Berlin. I stayed on a corner of Tucholskystraße, around the corner from Oranienburger Straße and the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue, built in 1859-1866 as the main synagogue of Berlin’s Jewish community.

The visit included a day at the former concentration camp in Sachsenhausen and a four-hour walking tour of Jewish Berlin’s destruction and rebirth.

I also visited the Pergamon Museum, the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the site of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) and a number of historic churches, including the Marienkirche and Sophienkirche, and strolled along Unter den Linden.

Travelling over the Alps, somewhere above Austria, on my way between Dublin and Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

4, Austria:

After experiencing Easter in Thessaloniki, it took three flights to get back to Dublin in April: a flight to Vienna, a flight to Frankfurt, and from there to Dublin. For the travel weary, some say you cannot count being in a country if you have not stayed overnight. Most agree that it does not count if you only touch down for a refuelling or to change flights. But for me, the safe definition is if you have to pass through passport control and have at least a cup of coffee.

In the past, I have stayed in Vienna in 2002, when I was on a panel at a seminar organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, and stayed over twice in 2005 on way to and from China for Church visits.

This time there was time for no more than a cup of coffee in the airport … but I suppose that still counts.

On one of the many daily walks on the beaches of Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

5, Greece:

I was in Greece twice this year, and stayed in three places. I stayed in Thessaloniki from 4 to 9 April, experiencing Orthodox Easter, but also visiting the city’s only surviving synagogues, the old Jewish quarter, the Jewish Museum, some surviving Jewish mansions on Vassilisis Olgas Avenue, and the Jewish Holocaust Memorial at Liberty Square, a bronze sculpture by Nandor Glid that has been desecrated a few times this year.

In Thessaloniki, there was time for meals with friends, walks along the seafront, visits to churches, cathedrals and a few quiet hours in the Monastery of Vlatadon which is perched like a balcony above the city and the harbour, as well as a full-day visiting Mount Athos.

Later, I spent two summer weeks (6 to 20 June) back in Crete, with one week in Rethymnon, staying at Varvaras Diamond Hotel near the beach in Platanes, and a week at the Corissia Princess Hotel in Georgioupoli.

There were days strolling through the labyrinthine back streets of Rethymnon, long lingering dinners with friends, and days on the beaches in Platanes and Georgioupoli, visits to cathedrals, churches and icon workshops, visits to Chania in the west of Crete, to mountain villages, through gorges and across the White Mountains, to Hora Sfakíon and Frangokastello on the south coast, to the Monastery of Saint George in Karydi, and to villages and olive groves in the mountains.

Las Casas de la Judería, a Seville hotel that is worth visiting … just for itself (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

6, Spain:

With a new passport in my hands from August, I visited Spain at the end of October, and spent four nights in Seville (23 to 27 October. I stayed in the Hotel Las Casas de la Judería de Sevilla, an unusual hotel complex made up of 27 traditional houses, where the 134 different rooms are linked through 40 patios, courtyards, gardens and a labyrinth of small passageways, balconies and Roman-style tunnels.

The hotel takes its name from its location in the heart of the old Jewish quarter of Seville, just minutes away from the main landmarks in the city.

As well as visiting the Cathedral, the Real Alcazar and the other sites every tourist tries to visit in Seville, I also visited places in Seville and Tarifa associated with the extraordinary life of Josefina de Comerford, Doña Josefa Eugenia Maria Francisca Comerford MacCrohon de Sales (1794-1865), who was involved in Spanish political intrigues in the early 19th century.

These include the Convento de la Encarnación, where she was confined after her death sentence was commuted to life in a convent, and the Corral del Conde (the Count’s Yard), where she lived out most of her later years.

In a side street in Tangier, once known as a city of spies and smugglers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

7, Morocco:

My visit to Seville also offered the opportunity to visit Tangier in Northern Morocco (25 October). Tangier once had a reputation as a safe haven for spies and their spying activities. It played host nests of spies throughout the Cold War and before that during World War II, and the association of Tangier with spies and their secretive lifestyles has made the city a location for many books and films.

Gondolas at the Palazzo Ducale, with San Giorgio Maggiore on the other side of the canal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

8, Italy:

Some important dates in the family calendar were marked with a few days in Venice near the end of the year (5 to 9 November 2018). I stayed at the Palazzetto San Lio in the heart of Venice, between the Rialto Bridge and Saint Mark’s Square. It is at the end Calle del Frutariol in the sestiere or district of Castello, and just a stone’s throw from Rialto and the Grand Canal.

I had visited Venice in the past while staying in other p;aces in northern Italy. But this was my first time to stay in Venice itself. Palazzetto San Lio is a Venetian palace built in the 17th and 18th centuries, and has been owned by an old Venetian family for generations.

During those few days, there were visits to Saint Mark’s Basilica and Saint Mark’s Square, many of the great churches of Venice, the Ghetto and its memorials and synagogues, boat trips along the Grand Canal, and visits to islands in the lagoon, including Murano, Burano and Torcello.

The railway station at the Slovenian side of Europa Square, the crossing point between Italy and Slovenia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

9, Slovenia:

While I was staying in Venice, I visited the divided town of Gorizia, both Gorizia and Nova Gorica, crossing the border between Italy and Slovenia a number of times, arriving and leaving from one railway station in Italy, and having lunch in another railway station in Slovenia.

The frontier dividing Gorizia remained in place until Slovenia became part of the Schengen Agreement on 21 December 2007.

Today, the border between Italy and Slovenia is almost invisible, an artificial line that runs between Gorizia in Italy and Nova Gorica in Slovenia. The most celebrated border crossing is at Europa Square, an open pedestrian square in front of the Transalpina railway station. But there are other border crossings between Gorizia and Nova Gorica, for the border is a straight line that ignores the natural contours and bends in the streets and buildings, still seen in the remains of a fence that once ran across streets and even divided gardens.

Today, the two towns form one conurbation that also includes the Slovenian municipality of Šempeter-Vrtojba. Since May 2011, these three towns are joined in a common trans-border metropolitan zone, administered by a joint administration board. As I stepped between three towns and two countries, no-one asked me for a passport, no one asked me to take my place in a queue, asking for identity, or my opinion on who should be in the European Union and who should be out.

Cherry blossoms at the City of Armagh Hotel during a break at the General Synod this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

10, Ireland:

Of course, most of the year was spent in Ireland, but I visited all four provinces, stayed in places in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland – in Armagh during the General Synod – and visited each of the cathedrals in the Diocese of Limerick and Killaloe.

This year, 2018, was a year that I was blessed with opportunities to take part in baptisms, weddings and funerals, ecumenical services, and the ordinary, every-day life of a parish that brings me many blessings. There was community engagement too, and I was invited to lift two All-Ireland cups this year: the Sam Maguire Football Cup when it visited Ardagh, Co Limerick, as part of the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the Ardagh Chalice; and the Liam McCarthy Hurling Cup, when the Limerick Hurling Champions visited Askeaton.

But, most of all, I was blessed this year by the people I love and the people who love me.

Hands across the border at Europa Square, at the border between Slovenia and Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

This Evening: Ten places I have visited in Ireland in 2018.

Great Saint Mary’s Church has been at the heart of life in Cambridge for 800 years

Inside Great Saint Mary’s, the University Church in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

When I stay in Cambridge, I regard Saint Bene’t’s Church on Bene’t Street, opposite the Eagle, as my parish church. It is a short, brisk walk from Sidney Sussex College, and I am welcomed regularly at both the Sunday Parish Eucharist and at the early morning weekday celebrations.

But there are many churches and college chapels in Cambridge where I feel welcome. In the past, I have preached in the chapels of both Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College, I have been at both the Sunday Eucharist and Choral Evensong in King’s College, and at the mid-week Eucharist in Westcott House. I have visited the chapels of most Cambridge colleges, and have attended the Sunday Eucharist in Little Saint Mary’s, Trumpington Street, the best-known Anglo-Catholic church in Cambridge.

The High Altar and choir stalls in Great Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

However, I had only occasionally visited the University Church or Great Saint Mary’s Church. So, it was interesting to spend some extra time in this church during visits to Cambridge this summer, on the way to and from the USPG conference.

Saint Mary the Great stands on Senate House Hill, opposite the Senate House and close to both King’s College and Gonville Caius College. It is known locally as Great Saint Mary’s or simply GSM to distinguish it from Little Saint Mary’s on Trumpington Street.

Parish church and university church

The entrance to the Tower in Great Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Cambridge is part of the Diocese of Ely and has no cathedral. So, Great Saint Mary’s serves not only as a parish church but also as the university church and has a role in the city similar to that of a cathedral.

Great Saint Mary’s is one of the 55 churches in the Greater Churches Group in the Church of England, which includes churches that have a cathedral-like ministry. They include Bath Abbey, Saint Martin in the Bullring, Birmingham, Saint Martin-in-the Fields, London, Christ Church, Spitalfields, and Saint Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden, the largest parish church in Essex.

Looking out from Great Saint Mary’s to the Senate House, which was built in 1730 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Great Saint Mary’s, a Grade I listed building, was designed in the Late Perpendicular style and has been at the heart of Cambridge life for over 800 years.

The first mention of the church is in 1205, when King John presented Thomas de Chimeleye to the rectory, and the first church on the site was built that year. Four years later, Great Saint Mary’s was the first home of Cambridge University when scholars fled Oxford in 1209, and here lectures were given, degrees were conferred and celebrations took place.

The church was mostly destroyed by fire on 9 July 1290. At the time, the fire was blamed on the Jewish population in Cambridge. The synagogue was closed, all 5,000 Jews were expelled from England. The old synagogue in the centre was given to the Franciscans, who had their main house of Cambridge on the site of Sidney Sussex College.

Great Saint Mary’s was rebuilt, and in 1303 the University ordered that a special sermon should be preached at Great Saint Mary’s four times a year. The tradition of the University Sermon continues to this day.

During its early years, Great Saint Mary’s was the property of the crown. But in 1342 the land passed to King’s Hall, founded in 1317 and one of the predecessors of Trinity College Cambridge. Ever since, the site has been owned by Trinity College.

The new church was consecrated in 1351, and since 1352 it has been known as Great Saint Mary’s. In the Middle Ages, the church became an official gathering place for meetings and debates for Cambridge University.

The present church was built between 1478 and 1519, and the building costs were met largely by King Richard III and King Henry VII. King Henry VII donated 100 oak beams for the roof. The oaks came from Chesterford Park, near Cambridge, which belonged to the Abbott of Westminster, John Islip, and Henry VII had to apologise to the Abbott for cutting down his oaks.

Reformation role

An Icon of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child in Great Saint Mary’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Great Saint Mary’s played a leading part in the English Reformation. Many leading figures of the day preached here, including Erasmus, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. Martin Bucer (1491-1551), who was Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge from 1549 and who influenced Cranmer’s writing of the Book of Common Prayer, was buried here when he died in 1551 as a reaction to the damp fen climate.

During the reign of Queen Mary I, Bucer’s corpse was burned publicly in the marketplace. Great Saint Mary’s was condemned for harbouring the body of a heretic, and the churchwardens had to buy frankincense, sweet perfumes and herbs for a ceremony of reconciliation before the church could be used for services again.

However, in Elizabeth I’s reign, the dust from the place where Bucer was burned was replaced in the church in 1560 and now lie under a brass floor plate in the south chancel.

Great Saint Mary’s at the end of King's Parade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After the Reformation, Great Saint Mary’s became an important centre of preaching, and galleries were erected on all four sides to accommodate members of the university who were required to listen to formal sermons. The church tower was completed in 1608, and the font dates from 1632.

A Trinity don flew into a ‘greate rage’ when the Puritan churchwardens removed the altar steps in 1641. Royalist academics complained that Cromwell watched as his soldiers ripped up the Book of Common Prayer in the church, and Cromwell’s ‘multitudes of enraged soldiers’ vandalised the elaborate choir screen.

For the next 200 years, the Puritan faction dominated at Great Saint Mary’s, and galleries turned the church into a hall for preaching, centred on an imposing triple-decker pulpit.

The University Organ, bought from Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, in 1698, was built by the renowned organ builder ‘Father’ Bernard Smith (ca 1630-1708).

The bells were replaced in 1722, and the Society of Cambridge Youths, formed in 1724, claims to be the oldest bell-ringing society in Britain and the second oldest at any church in the world with a continuous ringing history.

The church continued as a venue for meetings and debates in Cambridge until 1730, when the Senate House was built across the street. In 1732, Great Saint Mary’s became the datum point from which the first English milestones were measured.

Transformation and restoration

Great Saint Mary’s became the datum point from which the first English milestones were measured in 1732 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During the 18th century, the whole church interior was transformed, and the church was restored by James Essex in 1766. When Henry VII’s oak roof showed signs of decay in 1783, a supplementary one was built a few feet above the original and the two were tied together.

The architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) carried out restoration work in 1850-1851, and soon after was involved in restoring Little Saint Mary’s on Trumpington Street. He was followed at Great Saint Mary’s in 1857 by Anthony Salvin (1799-1881).

From the 1860s, stained glass and a raised High Altar returned to Great Saint Mary’s, bringing colour and ritual back into the Anglican worship there. The interior was re-arranged with a new carved choir stalls and fixed pews, and the north and south galleries were removed, although the west gallery still stands.

The East Window depicting the Nativity of Christ is the work of the Chance Brothers partnership in Birmingham (1869) (Photograph: courtesy Great Saint Mary’s Church, Cambridge)

The stained glass in the east window depicting the Nativity of Christ was installed in 1869 and is the work of the Chance Brothers in Birmingham, who specialised in adapting the colouring techniques used by mediaeval glaziers. Other stained glass by Hardman was added in 1867-1869. The south porch was rebuilt in 1888, and there was further restoration work in the 20th century.

The clerestory windows, based on the canticle ‘Te Deum’, were inserted in 1902-1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Each window in the clerestory is based on a verse in Te Deum and they were inserted in 1902-1904. Sixty figures are portrayed, running east to west along the north side of the Church and then west to east along the south. They depict the ‘glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets and the noble army of martyrs.’

Christ in Majesty

Alan Durst created the scene of ‘Majesty of Christ’ in gilded wood for Great Saint Mary’s, and it was installed as a reredos in 1960 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The golden sculpture above the High Altar, the Majestas Christi, the Majesty of Christ, was made in gilded wood by Alan Durst in 1959 and was installed in 1960. Its imagery draws on the Book of Revelation. Christ stands in front of the cross as the tree of life, his hands and feet are marked by the wounds of the crucifixion and around him are the lion, ox, man and eagle, symbolising the four evangelists, while Christ treads on a serpent. The Latin inscription on the book in Christ’s left hand means, ‘The leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations’ (Revelation 22: 2).

The sculpture of the ‘Majesty of Christ’ by Alan Durst draws on imagery in the Book of Revelation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Great Saint Mary’s continues to play a role in the life of the University of Cambridge. University officers must live within 20 miles of Great Saint Mary’s, undergraduates within three miles, and the church hosts the University Sermons and is home to the University Organ and the University Clock.

Saint Mary the Great is unusual in housing two self-contained pipe organs, a Parish Organ in the chancel, built in 1991, and the University Organ in the West Gallery. The University Organ was rebuilt by William Hill in 1870. Great Saint Mary’s is one of the few churches were a double organ concerto can be performed.

The University Clock chimes the ‘Cambridge Quarters,’ later used by Big Ben. The old ring of bells was replaced in 2009 with a new ring of 13 bells cast by Taylors Eayre and Smith. Some of the original bells have been retained to continue sounding the Cambridge Chimes.

The funeral of Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), the theoretical physicist, was held in Great Saint Mary’s earlier this year before his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey.

A living tradition

A Sculpture of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child on the side of Great Saint Mary’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Great Saint Mary’s stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England, and it is a member of Inclusive Church. The mission of Great Saint Mary’s includes the Michaelhouse Centre and Chaplaincy in Trinity Street and the chaplaincy to the non-collegiate members of the University.

Past Vicars of Great Saint Mary’s include Mervyn Stockwood, later Bishop of Southwark, Hugh Montefiore, later Bishop of Kingston and of Birmingham, Stanley Booth-Clibborn, later Bishop of Manchester; Michael Mayne, later Dean of Westminster Abbey. David Conner, later Bishop of Lynn and then Dean of Windsor; and John Binns (1994-2017), now a Research Associate at the Centre of World Christianity at SOAS in London. John Binns was a founding director of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, where he remains a Visiting Professor, and has strong links with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Canon Adrian Daffern has moved from Woodstock and Bladon in the Diocese of Oxford as the new been Vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Great with Saint Michael, Cambridge. He was instituted and inducted to his new post on 5 September 2018.

Great Saint Mary’s continues to play a role in the life of the University of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This feature was first published in October 2018 in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory).

Bicycles chained to the railings of Great Saint Mary’s in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Reaching a new landmark makes me ask what 3.5 million people look like

Around 3.5 million people live in the Greater Athens region in Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I try not to worry about how many readers this blog attracts each day, or each month, still less about the number of hits this blog has had since I started blogging over eight years ago, in July 2010.

I want to write in this style because I think it is the right way to share my ideas, from my sense of humour to my deepest values. But I am determined not to write in a particular way in the hope of attracting a greater number of readers.

Do I know who I am writing for? Did Thomas Addison know who was going to read his essays in the Spectator or TS Eliot know who was going to buy and read and his poems?

On the other hand, I suppose, Shakespeare did worry how many people were going to pay to see his plays on the stage of the Globe.

But I am no Shakespeare, and certainly no Addison or Eliot, nor does my livelihood depend on my writing.

On the other hand, the occasional response from a reader can so positive that it makes it all worth the effort and the energy that it takes to keep a blog like this going.

And so, I have kept a tab on some landmarks for this blog, and there was a certain sense of satisfaction in noticing that earlier this day this blog had passed another landmark. By early this afternoon [21 September 2018], this blog had recorded a total of 3.5 million individual hits since I first began blogging over eight years ago.

Since I began blogging, it took two years to reach 0.5 million hits in July 2012. This rose to 1 million by September 2013, 1.5 million in June 2014, 2 million in June 2015, 2.5 million in November 2016, and 3 million by October 2016.

What do 3.5 million people look like?

Well, 3.5 million is the population of Puerto Rico, Bosnia and Uruguay, and the population of the Republic of Ireland was around 3.5 million people from the mid-1980s until the first half of the 1990s.

Today, 3.5 million people live in Berlin, Aleppo, Dakar, Casablanca and the Greater Athens area, the Attica region in Greece.

The Attica region, with a population of around 3.5 million people, includes greater Athens, a number of suburban towns and the port of Piraeus, one of the world’s largest passenger ports.

Today’s metropolis of Athens, with its 3.5 million people, is the political, social, cultural and economic capital of Greece. Greater Athens is a metropolitan area that extends over 583 sq km.

Surprisingly, the Athens suburbs are among the most thinly populated outlying city districts anywhere. The municipality of Athens has an area of 39 sq km, with a population of 665,000 people living inside city limits in 2016.

Tourists at the harbour in Rethymnon this summer … Crete welcomes 3.5 million visitors a year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Crete welcomes more than 3.5 million visitors annually; mammoths first found themselves on the island of Crete as early as 3.5 million years ago.

Both the Greek Orthodox Church of Constantinople and the Georgian Orthodox Church have 3.5 million members. The Church of Greece pays about €3.5 million in taxes a year.

The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has about 3.5 million members, and so too has the National Baptist Convention of America.

Around 3.5 million German tourists travelled to Turkey last year, over 3.5 million tourists visited Israel, and over 3.5 million tourists visited Cyprus.

About 8.7 million people visit Ireland each year, and the UK is the largest source of overseas visitors … with 3.5 million visitors.

More than 3.5 million visitors come to Cambridge every year. Which is totally unconnected with the fact that each year over 3.5 million people in 130 countries sit the Cambridge Assessment English exams, the world’s leading certificates for English language learners.

Licensed buskers have an audience of around 3.5 million Tube passengers on the London Underground every day, and it is said the number of vegans in the UK has reached an all-time high of 3.5 million.

About 3.5 million EU citizens living in the United Kingdom will have to apply for a new immigration status after Brexit and must prove their identity to gain ‘settled status,’ although large numbers will be unable to complete the whole process digitally.

In Ireland, over 3.5 million people are members of credit unions, making the credit union movement across Ireland is the most successful in the world with the highest membership per capita. On the other hand, there are 3.5 million members of the National Trust in the United Kingdom.

Although he won the election, Donald Trump continues to claim that 3.5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election in the US. The information he used was compiled from only 462 counties in 38 states, yet the entire US comprises over 3,000 counties in 50 states.

Many of those other countries might well have substantially fewer registered voters on their rolls than adult residents who are eligible to vote … which all goes to show that Trump is the biggest peddler of ‘fake news’ and lies, and knows nothing about how to count either the number of people at his inauguration or 3.5 million people.

For those who prefer real news, the New York Times has 3.5 million paid subscriptions, and in Europe the largest-circulating newspaper is the German Bild at 3.5 million.

In terms of spending power, Kythnos Island in Greece was up for sale recently for €3.5 million. The island in the west of Cyclades and surrounded by the Aegean Sea, covers 191,182 square metres, and is just an hour from Athens by boat. It already has 20 to 25 picturesque small houses, and the price had dropped from the original €5 million advertised price.

Aristotle Onassis bought the Greek island of Skorpios in 1962 for just 3.5 million drachmas, but that was then the equivalent of about £10,000.

The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin … 3.5 million people live in Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Fedamore House, Fedamore, Co Limerick, the home of Gerry McManus, younger brother of billionaire Limerick businessman JP McManus, is on the market with an asking price of €3.5 million.

Lough Rusheen House, a luxurious, five-bedroom, family home on the shores of Rusheeen Bay in Barna, is the most expensive property on sale in Co Galway, with a €3.5 million price tag.

Or you could buy the former Kenilworth Motors site in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, a high-profile site that is zoned for residential development.

The Clarion Hotel in Limerick, Ireland’s tallest hotel, was put on the market recently by the receivers for €3.5 million, just months after Limerick’s Radisson Blu Hotel was sold for €3.5 million. The Strand Hotel was given conditional planning permission in recent months to increase to over 200 rooms as part of a €3.5 million upgrade.

Ballymagarvey Village, a popular wedding venue in Co Meath, restored in recent years from a dilapidated property, has announced plans for a €3.5 million expansion to begin next year.

Irish Water, in partnership with Limerick City and County Council and supported by RPS and Roadbridge, recently completed a 12-month contract to find and fix leaks on the public water network. As a result, over 3.5 million litres of treated water which had been lost to leakage every day is now available to supply homes and businesses in Limerick City.

Bicycles outside Sidney Sussex College in the summer sunshine … more than 3.5 million visitors come to Cambridge every year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Sorry to miss the IOCS annual conference in Cambridge this week

The annual conference in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies takes place in Cambridge on Friday and Saturday

Patrick Comerford

I am disappointed that I cannot take part later this week in the annual conference in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

For many years, I have taken part in this conference at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and since 2008 the IOCS has played an important role in my continuing education and in my spiritual growth.

This week, the conference in Cambridge takes place on Friday [31 August 2018] and Saturday [1 September 2018] at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. The conference topic this year is: ‘The Newness of the Old: Tradition, Doctrine and Christian Life between Preservation and Innovation.’

For more details, enrolments and payments please go to the IOCS website here.

You can find a poster/flyer for the event here.

The keynote speakers at this year’s conference are: Dr Brandon Gallaher, University of Exeter; Revd Prof Nikolaos Loudovikos, University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki; Revd Prof Andrew Louth, Durham University; and Prof Jens Zimmerman, Trinity Western University.

Papers will be presented by: Barnabas Aspray, University of Cambridge; Lucian George Berciu, University of Fribourg; Richard Choate, Graduate Theological Union and University of California, Berkeley; Dr Viorel Coman, KU Leuven; Dr Christine Mangala Frost, IOCS, Cambridge; Ryan Hacker, University of Cambridge; Prof Sigríður Halldórsdóttir, University of Akureyri; Dr Smilen Markov, University of Veliko Turnovo / University of Oxford; Michael Miller, University of Cambridge; Ben Morris, Diocese of Sourozh; Yuliia Rozumna, Nottingham University; and Stefan Zelijkovic, University of Belgrade.

In Christianity, the preservation of tradition and innovation are complexly intertwined. On the one hand, an act of resistance to change can turn out to be an original move that outperforms fashionable new ideas and practices. On the other hand, the audacious introduction of the ‘new’ is at times the only way to safeguard the faithful continuation of tradition.

Yet innovation can also weaken tradition and lead to its destruction, and faithfulness to tradition may degenerate into an ossified and lifeless traditionalism.

A consistently Trinitarian theology and practice must transcend any simplistic dichotomy between a conservative and a progressive outlook on life. Paradoxically, it is precisely the ‘old’ that manifests itself as the ‘ever-new’.

The question as to how to balance the interplay of continuity and discontinuity remains one of the main challenges for Orthodox theology in the 21st century. The aim of the conference is to explore how the complex interrelationship between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ is to be conceived of.

A conference programme/flyer can be downloaded here.

Information about how to get to Sidney Sussex College can be found here.

In advance of the conference, the IOCS has organised a half-day programme of talks delivered by three Visiting Scholars at the end of their research period in Cambridge. This session takes place on Thursday morning [30 August 2018], from 10 am to 12 noon at Wesley House.

The Revd Dr Natanael Neacsu, the Revd Teofil Pantiru and Diogene Mihaila, all from Romania, will present 20-minute papers, summarising their research project.

Their presentations are followed by a Q&A session.

The IOCS is offering a new MA in Spirituality and a new MA in Contemporary Faith and Belief

Meanwhile, enrolment is still open until Friday [31 August] for the October 2018 intake, and until 1 December for the January 2019 intake for the new MA in Spirituality and the new MA in Contemporary Faith and Belief at IOCS. These courses are offered full-time or part-time, on-site or by distance-learning.

These two new MA programmes are suitable for people who are interested in ministry and professional or personal development for today’s world. They are taught in conjunction with the Cambridge Theological Federation, and the MA degree is awarded by Anglia Ruskin University.

The modules on the MA in Spirituality include: Human Condition; Christian Spirituality in Context; Mystery of Love; Christianity and Ecology; Ecumenism in Theory and Practice; Orthodox Spirituality; and Life in Spirituality.

The MA in Spirituality offers participants a lively debate on the meaning and the role of spirituality in the context of the Christian traditions as well as in today’s multi-cultural and multi-religious environments.

The course is available as a Postgraduate Certificate in Spirituality (two modules), a Postgraduate Diploma in Spirituality (four modules) and the MA in Spirituality (four modules and a 15,000-word dissertation).

The options include full-time or part-time study, choosing from online or classroom lectures and seminars, and some modules will be available by block teaching in Cambridge over one or two weeks.

The modules on the MA in Contemporary Faith and Belief include: Secularisation and Christianity; Mystery of Love; Ecumenism in Theory and Practice; Christianity and Ecology; Theology and Science; and Philosophical Theology.

The MA in Contemporary Faith and Belief offers students a timely debate about the role of faith and belief in the contemporary world.

This course in also available as a Postgraduate Certificate in Contemporary Faith and Belief (two modules), a Postgraduate Diploma in Contemporary Faith and Belief (four modules), and the MA in Contemporary Faith and Belief (four modules and a 15,000-word dissertation).

This too is available full-time or part-time, through online or classroom lectures and seminars, and some modules will be available by block teaching in Cambridge over one or two weeks.

Further information about the courses, including admissions process and fees, are available on the IOCS website: www.iocs.cam.ac.uk

Chocolate box thatched houses and wisteria are part of our shared heritage

The last of the summer wisteria? … spotted in Adare at the weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Cambridge earlier this month, I thought I had seen the last of the wisteria this summer in Chapel Court when I visited Sidney Sussex College.

There were just some shots of blue and light purple in the flowers and bright foliage dripping from the vines along the wall throughout Chapel Court, Hall Court and Cloister Court, and dangling over into Sidney Street.

I have a particular fondness for the wisteria in Sidney Sussex. In May and June, wisteria covers college walls, pretty cottages, terraced houses, and even appears on student accommodation throughout Cambridge. But I thought I had seen the last of wisteria this summer in Cambridge earlier this month on my way to and from the USPG conference in High Leigh in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Then, during the weekend, as I strolled through the Town Park in Adare, Co Limerick, opposite the Heritage Centre on the Main Street, my eyes were drawn to some flowering wisteria that has survived into these final days of wisteria, I reminder of the promises of summer from six or seven weeks ago – and what a summer it has been.

The stones and the bridge at the Washing Pool in Adare, which dates back to the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The park has a number of beautiful walks and pathways, and a thatched gazebo that is attractive for families on summer weekends and that is probably a popular location too for pretty wedding photographs.

At one of the entrances to the park, the ‘Washing Pool’ or Linn Níocháin is formed by a tributary stream of the River Maigue, the Droichidin, as it flows under a two-arched bridge.

In the past, groups of women gathered here regularly to wash their clothes and talk about village life. Before the days of washing machines, washing powder and detergents, these women did their washing on spittle stones in the stream bed or by pounding the clothes with wooden washing bats or beetles.

The Washing Pool was also a watering place for horses.

The thatched wooden gazebo in the Town Park in Adare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The land for the town park and the thatched wooden gazebo were presented to the town of Adare by the Dunraven family of Adare Manor in 1975, and an avenue of chestnut trees that once led up to Adare Manor is now part of the park.

The pool, dating back over 200 years, was restored and the banks paved by Limerick County Council and the Adare Tidy Towns Association during European Architectural Year in 1975.

A thatched house with a wicker porch on the Main Street in Adare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

But it seems the tourists come to Adare mainly to see the thatched houses that line the south side of the Main Street. They are picturesque in a picture-postcard or chocolate-box type of way, and many of those tourists must think these are stereotypical Irish thatched cottages.

But, of course, few of these are cottages. Today, many of them are boutique shops and highly-recommended restaurants. But they were built as family homes, they are often two-storeyed, and as I walked along the Main Street at the weekend I imagined that most of these thatched houses would fit more perfectly in Grantchester or Trumpington than on a small-holding with subsistence farming in 19tth century remote, rural and poverty-stricken Ireland.

The original thatched houses in Adare were built in the 1820s as homes for people employed on the Earl of Dunraven’s estate, on the farm, in the Manor House or in the cigarette factory.

For a short time, tobacco was cultivated as a crop on the Adare estate as part of the economic plans of the 4th earl of Dunraven, who also built a factory, the Adare Cigarette Company, on his estate. The firm once employed about 70 people in grading the tobacco leaves in the factory in Adare.

So these thatched houses have an urban rather than a rural context for their story over the generations.

On Saturday [28 July 2018], the Guardian ran a feature on thatched houses in England. Readers were tantalised by the opportunity to get the ‘chocolate box’ look with traditional properties from Devon to Suffolk.

They ranged in price from £265,000 for a one-bedroom semi-detached cottage with an unusual thatched catslide roof is on the edge of a village three miles south-west of Andover, in Hampshire, or £295,000 Fleur De Ley, a former public house dating back to the 1700s and now a four-bedroom cottage in Clifton Hampden, a village near the market town of Abingdon, eight miles from Oxford.

£850,000 could buy Foxgloves in Longthorpe in Cambridgeshire, a village two miles from Peterborough. Foxgloves can genuinely claim to be a ‘chocolate box’ property – a photograph of the four-bedroom Grade II listed house actually graced some Cadbury’s chocolate boxes 40 years ago.

All of these houses could sit easily into Grantchester or Trumpington, as could any of the thatched houses in Adare. There is a deeper, shared culture that brings these two islands together than is expressed in the narrow nationalism of Brexiteers or those who wrap the green flag around themselves far too loudly.

Foxgloves in Longthorpe in Cambridgeshire is a ‘chocolate box’ property … it graced a Cadbury chocolate box 40 years ago (Photograph: Savills/The Guardian)

An evening with the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in Saint Mary’s Cathedral

Patrick Comerford

Last night’s concert by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, may well be remembered as the highlight of the celebrations this year marking the 850th anniversary of the foundation of the cathedral in 1168.

In his programme notes, Peter Barley points out that at the head of his score for his setting of Psalm 48, Edward Elgar described the piece as ‘being an anthem for the foundation or commemoration of a church.’ So, he says, this was a particularly apt choice for last night’s concert celebrating the 850th anniversary of the cathedral.

He also notes that Elgar that this setting was first performed in Westminster Abbey on the same evening 106 years ago, 16 July 2018. However, Elgar had begun work on this psalm setting in early August 1910, while he was in the middle of finishing the coring of his Violin Cocerto.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised:
in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.

I found the most moving piece in this concert was Lord, thou hast been our refuge by Ralph Vaughan Williams, his setting for Psalm 90.

Next year also marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Vaughan Williams, who died on 26 August 1958.

Edward Elgar and Hubert Parry were important influences on Vaughan Williams. In his notes, Peter Barley observes that on hearing this anthem, especially its stirring ending, one can detect Vaughan Williams response to Parry’s exhortation to him to write choral music ‘as befits an Englishman and democrat.’

Vaughan Williams was an anti-war campaigner, with a strong social conscience and a radical political voice, so it would be interesting to know how this most English of composers would respond to today’s ‘Brexit’ debates.

Sung concurrently with the Psalm are the words from the first verse of Isaac Watts’s hymn:

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

At the end of the concert, I was invited by the Dean of Saint Mary’s, the Very Revd Niall Sloane, to make a presentation as Precentor on behalf of the Cathedral Chapter and the Cathedral Community to Stephen Cleobury, who has been the Director of Music for the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, for 35 years.

The Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge seen from the Backs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The programme last night included choral music from the choir’s extensive repertoire, including music by Orlando Gibbons, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Hubert Parry and Judith Weir.

This evening’s full programme was:

Orlando Gibbons, Verse anthems (‘This is the Record of John,’ ‘O thou, the central orb’ and ‘See, the Word is incarnate’) (with organ)

Judith Weir, ‘Illuminare, Jerusalem’ and Ascending into heaven’

Simon Preston, ‘Alleluyas’ (organ solo)

EW Naylor, ‘Vox dicentis, clama’

Hubert Parry, ‘I know my soul hath power,’ and Lord, let me know mine end (Songs of Farewell, No 2 and No 6)

Edward Elgar, Psalm 48, ‘Great is the Lord’

Herbert Howells, ‘Psalm Prelude’ Set I No 1 (organ solo)

Ralph Vaughan Williams, ‘Lord, thou has been our refuge’

Hubert Parry, ‘Never weather-beaten sail’ and ‘My soul, there is a country’ (Songs of Farewell, No 3 and No 1).

Entering Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, by the Great West Door for last night’s concert (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A concert by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, in Saint Mary’s Cathedral

The Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge … the choir is performing in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Limerick this evening for a concert in Saint Mary’s Cathedral by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

Saint Mary’s Cathedral is marking the 850th anniversary of its foundation and this promises to be the highlight of the musical programme in this year’s celebrations.

Saint Mary’s which was a gift to the Church from Donal Mór O’Brien, the last King of Thomond. It has been a site of Christian worship since 1168 and is one of the oldest buildings in Limerick City.

The choir visit forms part of this year’s festivities which are celebrating and promoting the Cathedral in Limerick and beyond. Since early last week, this event has been sold out, no more tickets available and tickets will not be available at the door.

Speaking of the concert, the Dean, the Very Rev’d Niall J. Sloane said: ‘Saint Mary’s is privileged and honoured to welcome the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, to the Cathedral. This is possibly a once in a life-time opportunity to hear the choir in Limerick and we are delighted that they will be a part of our celebrations in 2018.’

As part of the celebrations, I preached at the broadcast Eucharist from Saint Mary’s Cathedral on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday morning [15 July 2018].

This evening’s programme includes choral music from the choir’s extensive repertoire, including music by Orlando Gibbons, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Herbert Howells, Hubert Parry and Judith Weir.

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, was founded in the 15th century and is the pre-eminent representative of the British church music tradition. It is most famous for singing A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, the Christmas Eve service that the BBC has broadcast from Cambridge since 1928.

When King Henry VI founded King’s College in 1441, it was his intention that a choir would provide music for the daily offices and celebrations of the Mass. The College Statutes (1453) stipulate that the college would consist of a Provost, 70 fellows and scholars, and a choir composed of 10 secular chaplains, six stipendiary lay clerks (or ‘singing-men’) and 16 choristers.

Henry VI specified that the choristers were to be poor boys, of strong constitution and of ‘honest conversation.’ They had to be under 12 years of age when they were admitted, and able to read and sing. In addition to their choral duties, singing daily Matins, Mass and Vespers, they were to wait at table in Hall.

The boys were provided with meals and clothing, and eight pence a week for their board. They were not allowed to wander beyond the college grounds without permission from their Master or the Provost.

The earliest record of a permanent schoolmaster dates from 1456, when Robert Brantham, a former Eton and King’s scholar, held the post of master over the choristers, as well as singing in the Choir.

Orlando Gibbons, whose work is included in this evening’s programme, entered the choir as a 12 year-old chorister in 1596, probably under the direction of his eldest brother, Edward, who was then the organist. In 1598, Orlando entered the university and gained the degree of Bachelor of Music in 1606. At the age of 21, he was appointed as ‘gentleman’ and Organist of the Chapel Royal by James I.

Gibbons became one of the most versatile English composers of the age. His numerous sacred and secular compositions remain in the repertoire. His death on 5 June 1625 is regularly marked by the singing of his music at Evensong.

John Tomkins, brother of the composer Thomas Tomkins, was officially appointed as organist in 1606 and he stayed until 1625. During his tenure, the choir flourished and a very high standard of singing was attained.

For a few years in the 1550s under Edward VI, and during the period of the Puritan Commonwealth in the 1650s, choral services in the chapel were suppressed. Sung services were completely suppressed from 1652 to 1660, although the Organist and Master, Henry Loosemore continued to draw his salary from the College.

These interruptions aside, the choir has been singing services continuously for over 500 years. Past directors of the choir have included John Tomkins, Harold Darke, Sir David Willcocks, and Sir Philip Ledger. The present choir director is the composer Stephen Cleobury.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was created by Dean Eric Milner-White in 1918, based on a Christmas Eve service that had been introduced by Bishop Benson at Truro Cathedral.

The first radio broadcast from King’s College was a Sunday service on 2 May 1926. Then, in 1927 and 1929, the new HMV mobile van visited Cambridge to record the choirs of King’s College and Saint John’s College. However, only two of the recorded tracks were – Bach’s Auf! Auf! Mein Herz (BWV 441) and Gott lebet noch (BWV 46) – released, and then only in 1931.

In 1928, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was broadcast on Christmas Eve for the first time. It was broadcast the following year but for reasons that are not clear not in 1930. From 1931, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast annually.

The Choir exists primarily to sing daily services in King’s College Chapel. But its worldwide fame and reputation, enhanced by its many recordings, has led to invitations to perform around the world.

This evening’s programme includes:

Orlando Gibbons, Verse anthems (to include See, the Word is incarnate and This is the Record of John) (with organ)

Judith Weir, Illuminare, Jerusalem

Simon Preston, Organ solo, Alleluyas

EW Naylor, Vox dicentis, clama

Hubert Parry, I know my soul hath power and Lord, let me know mine end (Songs of Farewell 2 and 6)

Edward Elgar, Psalm 48

Herbert Howells, Organ solo, Psalm Prelude Set I No 1

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Lord, thou has been our refuge

Hubert Parry, Never weather-beaten sail and My soul, there is a country (Songs of Farewell and 1).

The Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge seen from the Backs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Great Saint Mary’s, the University Church in Cambridge, is as old as the university itself

Inside Great Saint Mary’s, the University Church in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

When I stay in Cambridge, I have come to regard Saint Bene’t’s Church on Bene’t Street, opposite the Eagle, as my parish church. It is just a short, brisk and quick walk from Sidney Sussex College, and I have been welcomed at both the Sunday Parish Eucharist and at the early morning weekday celebrations at 8 a.m.

But there are many churches and college chapels in Cambridge that I have felt welcome in too. In the past, I have preached in the chapels of both Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College, I have been at both the Sunday Eucharist and Choral Evensong in the Chapel of King’s College, and at the mid-week term-time Eucharist in Westcott House. In addition, I have visited the chapels of most Cambridge colleges, and I have also been at the Sunday Eucharist in Little Saint Mary’s on Trumpington Street, one of the best-known Anglo-Catholic churches in Cambridge.

In all these years, however, I had only occasionally visited the University Church or Great Saint Mary’s Church, and so it was interesting to spend a little extra time in this great church during my visits to Cambridge last week on my way to and from the USPG conference in High Leigh, near Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

Saint Mary the Great is a parish and university church on Senate House Hill, at the north end of King’s Parade, opposite the Senate House and close to both King’s College and Gonville Caius College. It is known locally as Great Saint Mary’s or simply GSM to distinguish it from Little Saint Mary’s on Trumpington Street.

Cambridge has no cathedral and is part of the Diocese of Ely. So, in many ways, Great Saint Mary’s serves not only as a parish church in Cambridge, and also as the university church for the University of Cambridge, and it has a role in the city similar to that of a cathedral.

Indeed, Great Saint Mary’s is one of the 55 churches in the Greater Churches Group in the Church of England, which includes churches that have a cathedral-like ministry in their towns and cities. They include Bath Abbey, Saint Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, Christ Church, Spitalfields, Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, London, Pershore Abbey, Saint Mary the Virgin, Saffron Walden, the largest parish church in Essex, Sherborne Abbey, and Selby Abbey.

The entrance to the Tower in Great Saint Mary’s, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Great Saint Mary’s, which is also a Grade I listed building, is designed in the Late Perpendicular style and has been at the heart of Cambridge life for over 800 years, welcoming people from many backgrounds and nationalities.

The first mention of the church is in 1205, when King John presented Thomas de Chimeleye to the rectory, and the first church on the site was built that year. Four years later, Great Saint Mary’s was the first home of Cambridge University when scholars fled Oxford in 1209, and here lectures were given, degrees were conferred and celebrations took place.

The church was mostly destroyed by fire on 9 July 1290. At the time, the fire was blamed on the Jewish population of Cambridge, and the synagogue was closed. King Edward I issued an edict in 1290, expelling all 5,000 Jews from England and confiscating their property. The old synagogue near the prison – later the site of the Guildhall on Market Hill – was given to the Franciscans, who had their main house in Cambridge on the site of Sidney Sussex College.

The church was rebuilt, and in 1303, the University ordered that a special sermon should be preached at Great Saint Mary’s four times a year. The tradition of the University Sermon continues to this day.

During the early years of Great Saint Mary’s, the church was the property of the crown, but on 15 July 1342 the land passed to King’s Hall, founded in 1317 and one of the predecessors of Trinity College Cambridge. Ownership of the site passed to Trinity College, and it has rested there ever since.

The orders for the consecration of the new church were issued on 17 May 1346, but these were not enacted until 15 March 1351. Before 1352, the church was known as the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, but since that year has become known by its present name.

In the Middle Ages, the church became an official gathering place for meetings and debates for Cambridge University.

The present church was built between 1478 and 1519, and the building costs were met largely by King Richard III and King Henry VII. King Henry VII donated 100 oak beams for the roof, with carved bosses. The oaks came from Chesterford Park in South Cambridgeshire which belonged to the Abbott of Westminster, John Islip, and the British Library holds a letter of apology from Henry VII apologising to the Abbott for cutting down his oaks.

Originally, bells were hung in a wooden structure in the churchyard. The bells were moved to the tower in 1515 and the structure was dismantled.

The clerestory windows, based on the canticle Te Deum, were inserted in 1902-1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Great Saint Mary’s played a leading part in the English Reformation. Many leading figures of the day preached here, including Erasmus, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. Martin Bucer (1491-1551), who was Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge from 1549 and who influenced Cranmer’s writing of the Book of Common Prayer, was buried here when he died in 1551 as a reaction to the damp fen climate.

During the reign of Queen Mary I, Bucer’s corpse was burned in the marketplace. Great Saint Mary’s was condemned for harbouring the body of a heretic, and the churchwardens had to buy frankincense, sweet perfumes and herbs for a ceremony of reconciliation before the church could be used for services again.

However, in Elizabeth I’s reign, the dust from the place where he was burned was replaced in the church in 1560 and now lie under a brass floor plate in the south chancel. Queen Elizabeth visited the Church in 1564.

After the Reformation, Great Saint Mary’s became an important centre of preaching, and galleries were erected on all four sides to accommodate members of the university who were required to listen to formal sermons. The church tower was completed in 1608, and the font dates from 1632.

As the English Civil War began to unfold, Puritan parishioners resented an elaborate choir screen built by the University vice-chancellor in 1639, and Cromwell’s ‘multitudes of enraged soldiers’ later vandalised it. In 1641, a Trinity academic flew into a ‘greate rage’ when the churchwardens started to follow Parliament’s orders to remove the altar steps. Royalist academics even complained that Cromwell watched as his soldiers ripped up the Book of Common Prayer in the church.

For the next 200 years, the Puritan faction dominated at Great Saint Mary’s. Galleries turned the church into a hall for preaching, centred on the imposing triple-decker pulpit.

The University Organ, bought from Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly, in 1698, was built by the renowned organ builder ‘Father’ Bernard Smith (ca 1630-1708).

The bells were replaced in 1722, and in 1724 the Society of Cambridge Youths was formed to formalise the responsibility for ringing them. This society claims to be the oldest bellringing society in Britain and the second oldest at any church in the world with a continuous ringing history.

Looking out from Great Saint Mary’s towards the Senate House, built in 1730 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The church continued as a gathering place for meetings and debates in Cambridge until 1730, when the Senate House was built across the street. Great Saint Mary’s became datum point from which the first English milestones were measured in 1732.

During the 18th century, the sermon became the main focus of theology teaching, the whole church interior was transformed, and the church was restored by James Essex in 1766. When Henry VII’s oak roof showed signs of decay in 1783, a supplementary one was built a few feet above the original and the two were tied together.

The architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) carried out restoration work in 1850-1851, and soon after he was involved in the restoration of Little Saint Mary’s on Trumpington Street. He was followed at Great Saint Mary’s in 1857 by Anthony Salvin (1799-1881).

From the 1860s, stained glass and a raised High Altar returned to Great Saint Mary’s, bringing colour and ritual back into the Anglican worship here. The interior was re-arranged with a new carved choir stalls and fixed pews, and the north and south galleries were removed, although the west gallery still stands.

The East Window depicting the Nativity of Christ is the work of the Chance Brothers partnership in Birmingham (1869)

The stained glass in the east window depicting the Nativity of Christ was installed in 1869 and is the work of the Chance Brothers partnership in Birmingham, which specialised in adapting the colouring techniques used by the best mediaeval glaziers. Other stained glass by Hardman was added in 1867-1869. The south porch was rebuilt in 1888, and there was further restoration work in the 20th century.

Each of the clerestory windows is based on a verse from the Te Deum and they were inserted in 1902-1904. Sixty figures are portrayed, running east to west along the north side of the Church and then west to east along the south. They depict the ‘glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of prophets and the noble army of martyrs.’

Alan Durst created the scene of ‘Christ in Majesty’ in gilded wood for Great Saint Mary’s, and it was installed as a reredos in 1960 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The golden sculpture above the High Altar, the Majestas Christi, the Majesty of Christ, was made in gilded wood by Alan Durst in 1959 and was installed in 1960. Its imagery draws on the Book of Revelation. Christ stands in front of the cross as the tree of life, his hands and feet are marked by the wounds of the crucifixion and around him are the lion, ox, man and eagle, who symbolise the four evangelists, while Christ treads on a serpent. The Latin inscription on the book in Christ’s left hand means, ‘The leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations’ (Revelation 22: 2).

The sculpture of the Majesty of Christ by Alan Durst draws on imagery draws in the Book of Revelation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As the university church, Great Saint Mary’s continues to play a role in the life of the University of Cambridge. For example, university officers must live within 20 miles of Great Saint Mary’s and undergraduates within three miles. The church also hosts the University Sermons and is home to the University Organ and the University Clock.

Saint Mary the Great is unusual in housing two self-contained pipe organs, a Parish Organ in the chancel for the regular congregation, built in 1991, and the University Organ in the West Gallery, played for University services. The University Organ was added to in the 18th and 19th centuries until a major rebuild by William Hill in 1870. There were further restorations in 1963 and again in 1995, and the organ was rededicated in 1996. Great Saint Mary’s remains one of the few churches were a double organ concerto can be performed.

The University Clock chimes the ‘Cambridge Quarters,’ later used by Big Ben, the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. The old ring of bells was replaced in 2009 with a new ring of 13 bells cast by Taylors Eayre and Smith. Some of the original bells have been retained to continue sounding the Cambridge Chimes.

The funeral of Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), the theoretical physicist, was held in Great Saint Mary’s earlier this year [31 March 2018] before his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey.

Great Saint Mary’s stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England, and is a member of Inclusive Church. The church works with partners at home and abroad in social and mission projects. The mission of Great Saint Mary’s includes the Michaelhouse Centre and Chaplaincy in Trinity Street and the chaplaincy to the non-collegiate members of the University.

Past Vicars of Great Saint Mary’s include Mervyn Stockwood (1955-1959), later Bishop of Southwark,Hugh Montefiore (1963-1970), later Bishop of Kingston and then of Birmingham, Stanley Booth-Clibborn (1973-1979), who became Bishop of Manchester; Michael Mayne (1979-1986), later Dean of Westminster Abbey; David Conner (1986-1993), afterwards Bishop of Lynn and then Dean of Windsor; and John Binns (1994-2017), now a Research Associate at the Centre of World Christianity at SOAS in London. John Binns was a founding director of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge where he remains a Visiting Professor, and he is known for his strong links with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

In recent weeks, Canon Adrian Daffern, Vicar of Woodstock and Bladon, and Area Dean of Woodstock in the Diocese of Oxford, has been appointed Vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Great with Saint Michael, Cambridge, and is be instituted and inducted to his new post on 5 September 2018.

Bicycles chained to railings of Great Saint Mary’s in Cambridge last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)