A ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen churches dedicated to Saint Paul on the feast of the conversion of Saint Paul

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren … 25 January is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is the Third Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany III, 25 January 2026), and is also the Festival of the Conversion of Saint Paul, which also marks the last day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Because this feast falls on a Sunday this year, the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship recommends transferring its celebration to the tomorrow (Monday 26 January). But I still thought it would be worth marking this day in the Church Calendar this afternoon with a ‘virtual tour’ of a dozen churches dedicated to Saint Paul.

Many churches with Saint Paul’s name have double dedications to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, from Athlone and Ennis in Ireland, to Buckingham, Newport Pagnell and Olney in this part of England, to Aston in Birmingham and to churches I know in Iraklion in Crete and in Singapore. The little chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Vlatádon Monastery stands on the very spot where the Apostle Paul preached when he visited Thessaloniki in the year 50.

I know too of one peculiar double dedication, to Saint Catherine and Saint Paul, in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, originally built as Saint Paul’s and close to the High Leigh Conference Centre.

Churches with Saint Paul’s name alone are still many in number, though. In Ireland, for example, I have visited churches named after Saint Paul in Ardmore, Co Waterford, Glin, Co Limerick, Cahir, Co Tipperary, Emo, Co Laois, and Glenageary, Co Dublin, although Saint Paul’s at Mount Argus in Dublin is probably named after the Passionist monk and preacher Saint Paul of the Cross.

The chapel at the former Saint Paul’s School in Stony Stratford is now an Indian restaurant.

The churches I am looking at this afternoon are in England, Scotland, France, Greece, Malta and Scotland, and are a small selection of many churches I know, so this is a very limited selection indeed.

1, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London:

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London … rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

For many years, I strolled through London, from Liverpool Street Station to the USPG offices on my way to meetings of trustees. These walks offered opportunities for early morning or late afternoon visits to Wren churches, the sites of former Wren churches, churches designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, or guild and city churches. They gave me views of buildings such as Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, the Mansion House, the Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern, and allowed me to enjoy the cafés, buskers and bookshops, with new opportunities on each walk to discover parts of London I had not known before.

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) restored 51 churches in the city, concluding with Saint Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe, which he rebuilt in 1695.

The vista from the south side of the Millennium Bridge across to Saint Paul’s Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the cathedral of the Diocese of London, sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City. Its dedication to Saint Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on the site, founded in the year 604.

The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Wren; it was built in 1669-1711 and was completed in Wren’s own lifetime.

The earlier Gothic cathedral, Old Saint Paul’s Cathedral, largely destroyed in the Great Fire, was a central focus for mediaeval and early modern London, including Paul’s Walk and Saint Paul’s Churchyard being the site of Saint Paul’s Cross.

The dome of Saint Paul’s, framed by the spires of Wren’s City churches, has dominated London’s skyline for over 300 years. At a height of 111 metres (365 ft), it was the tallest building in London from 1710 until 1963. The dome remains among the highest in the world, and Saint Paul’s is the second-largest church building in area in the United Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral.

2, Saint Paul’s Church, Bedford:

Saint Paul’s Church on Saint Paul’s Square is the largest Church of England parish church in Bedford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Church on Saint Paul’s Square, Bedford, is the largest Church of England parish church in Bedfordshire. The former mediaeval collegiate church is a grade I listed building of cathedral proportions. With its size and tall spire, Saint Paul’s dominates Bedford.

During World War II, Saint Paul’s was the home for the BBC’s daily worship and hosted the Service for the National Day of Prayer in 1941.

Today, it is the Civic Church of the Borough of Bedford and of the County of Bedfordshire. It works closely with three other churches in Bedford – Saint Peter de Merton, Saint Martin’s and Saint Andrew’s – and welcomes thousands of visitors and pilgrims throughout the year.

Saint Paul’s is in the Diocese of St Albans. It has a cathedral-style choral tradition with a modern catholic liturgy, and it is a member of the Major Churches Network and of the Cathedrals Plus network.

Inside Saint Paul’s Church, Bedford, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Evidence suggests that Saint Paul’s Church was founded as a new minster by King Offa, who died in 796 CE, to serve the inhabitants of his new fortified urban burgh. Offa is said to have been buried in Bedford, and his minster church of Saint Paul has been identified as a probable site of his grave.

Most of the present church – the fifth on the site – was built or rebuilt in the 15th century in the Perpendicular style. The roofs were raised, clerestories added, windows enlarged, a second storey was added to south porch, as were the north and south windows, the oak roofs, the parclose screen, the priest’s two-storey vestry, misericords in the quire or chancel and the Trinity Chapel.

John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, preached in Saint Paul’s on 23 May 1656. In the 19th century Saint Paul’s became part of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, in which it remains. The architectural work in the church in the 19th century includes the tower and spire, transepts, choir stalls, quire and quire roof.

Late 19th and early 20th century work in the church includes the rood screen designed by the Gothic Revival architect George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907), who also reordered the chancel and restored the choir stalls. The Trinity Chapel was restored by the Bedford-based architect Charles Edward Mallows (1864-1915), who was part of the Arts and Craft movement. The English Altar and altar rails were designed by the Bromsgrove Guild, a company of artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement and founded by Walter Gilbert (1871-1946).

Later in the 20th century, from the mid-1970s to 1982, the church was restored and improved. Further work was completed on a narthex at the west end of the church in 2014.

3, Saint Paul’s Church, Lisson Street, Marylebone:

Saint Paul’s Church on Lisson Street and Rossmore Road replaced the former Bentinck Chapel on Lisson Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Church, on Lisson Street and Rossmore Road in North Marylebone, was designed by JW Higgins and was built by voluntary contributions as Saint Paul’s Chapel in 1837-1838, soon after the closure of the Bentinck Chapel on Lisson Street. It was consecrated in 1838 and was assigned a district.

After World War II, Saint Paul’s parish was united with Emmanuel, Maida Hill, and Saint Matthew, Maida Hill, to form the parish of Saint Paul with Saint Matthew and Emmanuel. The parish was united with Christ Church, Cosway Street, in 1971. Saint Paul’s Church became one of the parish churches of the parish of Christ Church and Saint Paul, St Marylebone, until Christ Church was closed in September 1977.

The interior of Saint Paul’s has been subdivided and refurbished, but the reredos remains in place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In recent years, the interior of Saint Paul’s has been subdivided and refurbished, the galleries have been removed, and the worship space is in part of the nave and the sanctuary area. The reredos and the windows remain in place.

Canon Clare Dowding is the Rector of Saint Paul’s, Priest in Charge of Saint Cyprian’s and Area Dean of Marylebone; the Revd Rachel Sheppard is the Assistant Curate; and the Revd Michele Lee is the Associate Priest.

The Parish Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Paul’s on Sunday sat 10 am, Morning Prayer is said on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9:15, Evening Prayer is said on Mondays at 4:30, and Holy Communion is celebrated on Friday at 8:30 am. Through a partnership with West London Synagogue and Foodcycle, Saint Paul’s offers a free community meal every Wednesday night to over 70 people at the church.

4, (former) Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street, Oxford:

The former Saint Paul’s Church on Walton Street, Oxford, looks like a Greek temple (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The former Saint Paul’s Church is a distinctive building that looks like a Greek temple on Walton Street, Oxford, facing onto Great Clarendon Street. It stands opposite the Oxford University Press and beside the Blavatnik School of Government. It is surrounded by the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter of the University of Oxford, formerly the Radcliffe Infirmary site, and in recent years it has been a café and arts venue.

Saint Paul’s was the first new parish to be created in Oxford and the first new church to be built in Oxford since the Reformation. The church and the parish came as responses to the first outbreak of cholera in this part of Oxford in 1831, and to serve both the growing new suburb of Jericho and the new industrial area growing up round the University Press.

Saint Paul’s Parish was carved out of the parishes of Saint Thomas and Saint Giles. It covered an area from Saint Giles Road West (now the south end of Woodstock Road) to the canal, and from Workhouse Lane (now Little Clarendon Street) to the end of Walton Street, which then turned west to end outside Carter’s Ironworks.

Saint Paul’s was the first new church built in Oxford since the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When it was formed, the parish included the University Press the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Observatory with Observatory Street. The Radcliffe Trustees made a gift of part of the old burial ground of the Radcliffe Infirmary as a site for the new church. The church was built in 1834 at a cost of about £3,500, and the money was raised by public subscription.

Saint Paul’s is a rectangular stone building in the Greek Classic style with a west portico of the Ionic order and a bell turret. The church was designed by the Oxford-based architect Henry Jones Underwood (1804-1852), best known for his Gothic Revival architecture, and his church at Littlemore for John Henry Newman became a model for other churches. The church was enlarged in 1853 with the addition of an apsidal chancel at the east end designed by the Oxford architect Edward George Bruton (1826-1899).

The parish was committed to the liturgical and social values and ideals of the Oxford Movement, emphasising the importance of personal responsibility in promoting education, health reform and social justice, and raising awareness of the living conditions of many people.

The Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows in were installed in 1888-1889. Six of the windows are by Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907), three depicting the Nativity, two the Resurrection and one the Ascension. As more people moved out of Jericho in the post-war decades, the congregation dwindled to a handful. The decline was hastened in the 1950s by the rise of the neighbouring church of Saint Mary Magdalen as the centre of Anglo-Catholicism in Oxford.

The parishes of Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas were united in 1963, and Saint Paul’s was closed in 1969. The building was acquired in 1988 by Secession Ltd to prevent its demolition, and it opened that year as Freud’s Arts Café, a café bar created by David Freud that offered live music, including jazz, punk, post-punk and blues. The name is written in Roman-style capital letters as ‘FREVD’ above the main entrance door.

5, Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, Marais, Paris:

The Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis on rue Saint-Antoine is the parish church in the Marais in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

the Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis on rue Saint-Antoine, the Catholic parish church in the Marais. The church gives its name to Rue Saint-Paul Place Saint-Paul and the nearest Metro station, Saint-Paul.

A shrine dedicated to Saint Paul in the Fields, Saint-Paul-des-Champs, was built on this site in 632-642, and served as a chapel for the cemetery of a convent founded by Saint Eloi and Saint Aure on Ile de la Cité during the reign of King Dagobert. Prominent figures buried in the old cemetery included François Rabelais and the architect François Mansart. The monastic cemetery disappeared and the old church was demolished in 1799.

The chapel was replaced by the first church on the site, Saint-Paul-des-Champs, built ca 1125, when the neighbourhood became a parish, and the dedication of the church was changed from Saint Paul the Hermit, a monk in Egypt in the third-fourth century, to Saint Paul the Apostle.

Charles V designated the Hôtel Saint-Pol on Rue Saint-Paul as his royal palace in 1358. Charles VI and Charles VII were baptised at Saint-Paul. The church was rebuilt in the Gothic style in 1431, and remained as the king’s parish up to 1559, when Henry II was mortally wounded in a jousting tournament on rue Saint-Antoine.

Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, uncle of Henry IV, bought the Hôtel de La Rochepot in 1580 and donated it to the Jesuits, who established their first house in Paris there and built a chapel dedicated to King Louis IX (Saint Louis) close to the present church.

The first stone of a new building was laid by Louis XIII in 1627. The new church was given the name of the king’s ancestor, Louis IX, and became the église Saint-Louis de la maison professe des Jésuites, a reference to the Maison Professe des Jésuites beside it. The first Mass in the new church was celebrated in 1641 by Cardinal Richelieu in the presence of Louis XIII.

Inside the Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, the first church in Paris built in the Baroque style (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The new church was designed by the Jesuit architects Étienne Martellange, who drew the initial plans, and François Derand, who was responsible for the design of the façade. The plan is inspired by the Chiesa del Gesù in Rome.

The dome which is 55 meters high was an unusual feature for a Jesuit building and was one of the first domes built in Paris. Both the dome and the bell tower are largely hidden from view from the street by the very high façade. The dome served as a model for other domes, including those of Les Invalides and Val-de-Grace.

During the French Revolution, the church was closed and used to store works of art and books plundered from other churches in the area. Five priests were killed in the church during the September Massacres on 2 September 1792. They are commemorated with a plaque.

The church was then used as a temple of the Cult of Reason and the Supreme Being. In 1793, Robespierre preached the cult of the goddess Reason in the church against the atheism promoted by Hébert. The chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was an important patron of the church, was guillotined in 1794. The old Saint Paul’s Church was demolished in 1798, but a section of the wall of the square tower is still visible on rue Saint-Paul.

Under the Concordat of 1801, the church was restored as a Catholic parish church in 1802, with a new dedication to Saint Paul and Saint Louis, recalling the older church that had been demolished in 1798. A bell from old Saint Paul’s was salvaged as well as the great clock on the façade.

The church was restored by the architect Victor Baltard in 1850, and the white marble high altar was moved and rebuilt under Louis-Philippe I with fragments from Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides. On the right side of the nave, one pillar has an inscription that is almost erased, République française ou la mort (‘French Republic or death’), scrawled during the Paris Commune in 1871.

The two clam-shell holy water vessels or stoups at the entrance were donated by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables(1862). They mark the baptism of his daughter Adele in 1830 and in memory of his daughter Léopoldine. She was 18 when she secretly married Charles Vacquerie, then 25, in the church on 15 February 1843. Seven months later, Léopoldine was pregnant when she drowned after their boat capsized on the Seine . Her wet, heavy skirts pulled her down, and Charles drowned as he made six attempts to save her. They were buried in the same coffin. The tragedy had a significant and measurable impact on the work and personality of Victor Hugo, and he dedicated numerous poems and a book to the memory of his drowned daughter.

6, Saint Paul’s Monastery, Mount Athos:

Saint Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos was endowed by the Serbian-born wife of the Sultan Murat II, who brought the gifts of the Three Wise Men (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul or Aghiou Pavlou is one of the working monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece, and has a community of 30 monks. It was founded by Saint Paul of Xeropotamou, who also founded Xeropotamou. The monastery was deserted in the 14th century, but was restored by Serbian nobles, Byzantine emperors, Danubian princes and Romanian and Greek benefactors. Catastrophes in 20th century included a fire in 1902 and a flood in 1911.

The monastery’s oldest building, the chapel of Saint George, has frescoes painted by members of the Cretan School. The monastery treasures are said to include the gifts of the Three Wise Men, donated by the Serbian-born wife of the Sultan Murat II. She is said to be the only woman to have set foot on the shore at the monastery harbour. Other relics include the foot of Saint Gregory the Theologian, and a piece of the True Cross.

One of the spiritual writers associated with Saint Paul’s is Saint Sophrony (1896-1993), was the disciple and biographer of Saint Silouan the Athonite. He was born Sergei Symeonovich Sakharov in Russia in 1896, and it is said that as a child he experienced the Uncreated Light. He was ordained a deacon in 1930 and became a disciple of Saint Silouan.

After Saint Silouan died in 1938, Saint Sophrony left the monastery at Saint Panteleimon and went to live in the wilderness on Mount Athos, first at Karoulia and then at a cave near Saint Paul’s Monastery. He was ordained priest in 1941 and became the spiritual father of many monks on Mount Athos. He was a founding figure in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in 1959, and died there in 1993. He was proclaimed a saint in 2019.

7, Saint Paul’s Church (Anglican), Athens:

Saint Paul’s Church on the corner of Philellenon Street and Queen Amalia Avenue in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Church Anglican Church in Athens is an early Victorian Gothic church on the corner of Philellenon Street and Queen Amalia Avenue, opposite the National Gardens. The early story of Saint Paul’s is intimately associated with the life of a Cork-born hero of the Greek War of independence, Sir Richard Church.

For decades, the congregation has included a considerable number of Irish, Americans, Canadians, Australians and South Africans, and in recent years they have been enriched by new arrivals. In recent years, Saint Paul’s has provides 800 meals a day for homeless people on the streets of Athens, and raised huge sums to help victims of the Greek crisis and refugees.

The church was built on land bought from the Turks before the Greek War of independence, and the foundation stone was laid on Easter Monday, 1838, by the British Minister in Athens, Sir Edmund Lyons, later Lord Lyons (1790-1838), whose family had emigrated from Ireland to Antigua in the previous century. Saint Paul’s stands within sight of Hadrian’s Gate, which marked the end of the old Hellenistic and classical city of Athens and the new city built by the Emperor Hadrian.

Philellenon Street was only laid out in 1855, so the church once had an unimpeded view of the Acropolis rising over the old city. Today, Saint Paul’s is within easy walking of many of the main tourist attractions in Athens, including the Plaka and the Acropolis, and is only a block away from the Greek Parliament and Syndagma Square.

Philelleon Street is an appropriate location for an English-speaking church – the street was named after those English-speaking lovers of Hellenic civilisation and culture, including Palmerston, Codrington and the poet Byron, who actively supported the Greek struggle for independence.

Sir Richard Church’s image on his grave in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Two windows in Saint Paul’s commemorate one of those Philhellenes, the Irish adventurer, Richard Church (1784-1875). Sir Richard Church was born in Cork, the second son of Massey Church, a prosperous Quaker butter merchant and exporter. Church ran away from his Quaker school to join the army, and served under Abercrombie in Egypt in 1801. Later that year, he accompanied the expedition to the Ionian Islands, where he raised a Greek regiment that included Theodoros Kolokotronis and other future Greek leaders.

In vain, Church pleaded the Greek cause in London and at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. He lived in Naples and Sicily until his expulsion in 1820, and in 1822 he was knighted by King George IV. But he soon returned to Greece, to join the War of Independence, and in April 1827 he was appointed commander in chief of the Greek forces.

Church insisted on Greek unity before accepting his command, and his pressure resulted in the election of Kapodistrias as president in 1827 and the adoption of a new, liberal constitution. Church played a conspicuous part in the revolt of 1843 and lived on in Greece becoming a Greek citizen, a senator and member of the council of state, inspector general of the Greek Army, and a pillar of the Anglican church in Athens. When he died in Athens on 20 March 1873, he was buried in the First Cemetery, alongside great Greek heroes and leaders.

Two windows in Saint Paul’s Church, the north window and the south window, are dedicated to his memory.

The two-light north window, presented by the British Government in 1875, depicts the figures of Caleb and Joshua. It is said that the inscription on the brass tablet beneath was written in honour of Church by the British Prime Minister, Gladstone, a personal friend of his nephew, the Very Rev Richard William Church, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, from 1871 to 1890.

Dean Church (1815-1890) and other members of Sir Richard’s family presented the south window in 1875. The window depicts Gideon and David, the story of the dew and the fleece, and David slaying Goliath.

Dean Church, who became the leader of the High Church party in the Church of England after Pusey’s death, was a reforming force in Saint Paul’s Cathedral along with Liddon and Lightfoot, who were two of his canons.

A previous treasurer of Saint Paul’s has been Dr David Green, an Irishman working in Athens for the University of Glamorgan and married to a Greek woman. Recent Irish members of the congregation included John O’Carroll, general manager of the Inter-Continental Hotel, and his Esther, and Geoffrey Mayes, who was a lay assistant in Saint Paul’s. When I first visited the church, the organist, Dr Richard Witt, a classicist working with the Open University, greeted me with the news that he was a great fan of Myles na Gopaleen and The Irish Times.

8, The Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, Valletta, Malta:

The Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck is one of the oldest churches in Valletta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul the Apostle is the patron saint of Malta, the country with the most holidays in the European Union, and 10 February is the Feast of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck in Malta (‘Nawfraġju ta' San Pawl’).

The Collegiate Parish Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, Valletta, also known as simply the Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck, is a parish church in Valletta and one of the oldest churches in the Maltese capital. Saint Paul’s shipwreck on Malta is described in the Acts of the Apostles, where Saint Luke writes: ‘After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta’ (see Acts 28: 1).

The Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck traces its origins to 1570s. It was designed by the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, and completed in December 1582. The church was handed over to the Jesuits and a new church was started in 1639.

The statue of Saint Paul above the door into the Church of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The church hosts fine artistic works, including a magnificent altarpiece by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio and paintings by Attilio Palombi, and Giuseppe Calì. A wooden statue of Saint Paul was carved in 1659 by Melchiorre Cafà, a brother of Lorenzo Gafà, who designed the dome. The statue is paraded through the streets of Valletta on the feast day of Saint Paul’s Shipwreck (10 February), sometimes during heavy rain.

The church also claims to hold the relic of the right wrist-bone of Saint Paul, and part of the column from San Paolo alle Tre Fontane, on which the saint was beheaded in Rome. The façade of the church was rebuilt in 1885 to a design by Nicholas Zammit. The church building is listed on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands.

9, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Mdina:

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Mdina, in central Malta, facing onto Saint Paul’s Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Paul (Il-Katidral Metropolitan ta’ San Pawl), commonly known as Saint Paul’s Cathedral or the Mdina Cathedral, is the Roman Catholic cathedral in Mdina, in central Malta. The cathedral was founded in the 12th century. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Malta, although since the 19th century it has shared this function with Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

According to tradition, the site of Mdina cathedral was originally occupied by a palace belonging to Saint Publius, the Roman governor of Melite who greeted the Apostle Paul after he was shipwrecked in Malta. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul cured Publius’ father and many other sick people on the island (see Acts 28: 1-10).

The first cathedral on the site is said to have been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But it fell into disrepair during the Arab period, when the churches in Melite were looted after the Aghlabid invasion in 870. In Arab times, the site was used as a mosque.

After the Norman invasion in 1091, Christianity was re-established on the Maltese Islands, and a cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was built in the 12th and 13th centuries. The cathedral was built in the Gothic and Romanesque styles, and was enlarged and modified a number of times.

Inside Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bishop Miguel Jerónimo de Molina and the cathedral chapter decided in 1679 to replace the mediaeval choir with one built in the Baroque style. The architect Lorenzo Gafà was designed and oversaw the new building.

The cathedral was severely damaged a few years later in the 1693 Sicily earthquake. Although parts of the building were not damaged, it was decided to dismantle the old cathedral and rebuild it in the Baroque style to a design of Lorenzo Gafà, incorporating the choir and sacristy, which had survived the earthquake, into the new cathedral. Work began in 1696, and it was consecrated on 8 October 1702. The cathedral was fully completed on 24 October 1705, when work on the dome was finished. The building is regarded as Gafà's masterpiece.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral is built in the Baroque style, with some influences from native Maltese architecture. The main façade faces Saint Paul’s Square and it is set on a low parvis approached by three steps.

The frescoes in the ceiling depict the life of Saint Paul and were painted by the Sicilian painters Vincenzo, Antonio and Francesco Manno in 1794. The altarpiece by Mattia Preti depicts the Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus.

10, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Valletta, Malta:

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Valletta … a landmark building above the harbour in Malta’s capital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul's Pro-Cathedral (Il-Pro-Katridral ta’ San Pawl) in Independence Square, Valletta, is officially the Pro-Cathedral and Collegiate Church of Saint Paul. It is an Anglican pro-cathedral of the Diocese in Europe situated in Independence Square, Valletta.

Saint Paul’s is a pro-cathedral in the Anglican Diocese in Europe, and one of three cathedrals of the Anglican Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. The main cathedral of the diocese is Holy Trinity Cathedral, Gibraltar, and there is a second pro-cathedral, Holy Trinity Cathedral, in Brussels.

The cathedral was commissioned by the Dowager Queen Adelaide during a visit to Malta in the 19th century, when she learned there was no place of Anglican worship on the island. Before her visit, Anglican services were held in a room in the Grand Master’s Palace.

Saint Paul’s was built on the site of the Auberge d’Allemagne, or the conventual home of the German Knights Hospitaller. The cathedral was designed by William Scamp and was built in 1839-1844.

Queen Adelaide laid the foundation stone on 20 March 1839 and her banner hangs above the choir stalls. The original plans were designed by Richard Lankasheer. However, when the building proved unstable, work had to resume on plans by William Scamp in 1841. Scamp's designs located the altar on the west side of the church, but the Bishop of Gibraltar had a more conservative view. The designs were altered, and Scamp designed an apse inside the great doors to hold the sanctuary on the east side.

The cathedral is built with Maltese limestone in a neo-classical style. The cathedral has columns with capitals of the Corinthian order while the capitals of the six columns of the portico are of the Ionic order. The internal dimensions of the building are 33.5 metres x 20.4 metres.

The cathedral is a landmark in Valletta, thanks to its spire rising to a height of over 60 metres, and is clearly visible in the Marsamxett Harbour.

Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Valletta … Queen Adelaide laid the foundation stone on 20 March 1839 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During World War II, the cathedral suffered minor damage and the roof collapsed, but most of the structure remained intact. During restoration works, the original designs by Scump started to take shape. A quire and rood screen were built on the west side of the cathedral. A pulpit was also incorporated with the screen dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill.

The organ came from Chester Cathedral, where there is a long-held tradition that it was played by George Frederick Handel when he was on his way to Dublin for the first public performance of his Messiah.

The painting behind the High Altar, Ecce Homo, is the work of AE Chalon and was donated in 2014. The oak panels around the High Altar are a memorial to the Allied units that took part in the defence of Malta in 1940-1943. Twelve flags in the aisles represent, among others, the Royal Air Force, the British Merchant Navy, and the Royal Navy.

The new chancery was dedicated by Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher of Canterbury on 2 December 1949 in the presence of Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II.

The undercroft was built from the remains of the basement of the Auberge d’Allemagne, and was used as a gas-proof air raid shelter during days War II.

11, Saint Paul’s Church, Saint Paul’s Bay, Malta:

Saint Paul’s Church, Saint Paul’s Bay, Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The town of Saint Paul’s Bay (San Pawl il-Baħar) is about 16 km north-west of Valletta. This is the largest town in the Northern Region and the seat of the Northern Regional Committee, along with being the most populous town in Malta.

The name of the town refers to the shipwreck of Saint Paul as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles on Saint Paul’s Islands near St Paul's Bay, on his voyage from Caesarea to Rome. Saint Paul’s stay is said to have laid the foundations of Christianity on the island.

Saint Luke recounts in Acts 27 to 28 how Saint Paul’s ship was lost at sea for two weeks during winter storms. Eventually, the ship ran aground on the island of Malta and was dashed to pieces by the surf, but all of the occupants survived and made it to shore.

Saint Paul’s Island, an uninhabited, rocky islet at the entrance to Saint Paul’s Bay, is thought to be the site where the ship wrecked. Acts 27: 41 states the ship ran aground on a piece of land ‘with sea on both sides.’

Saint Paul’s Church above the Menqa or boat shelter at the harbour in Saint Paul’s Bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Church stands on the water’s edge in the town of Saint Paul’s Bay. The church is also known as St. Paul’s Bonfire Church and commemorates the traditional site where the shipwreck survivors, including Saint Paul, swam ashore and a bonfire was built for them.

The church was first built in the 14th century, but was rebuilt after a bomb destroyed the original building during World War II. The parish is run by the Franciscan Conventuals.

12, Old Saint Paul’s Church, Edinburgh

Old Saint Paul’s Church traces its story back to 1689, when Bishop Alexander Rose left Saint Giles’ Cathedral with much of the congregation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Diocese of Edinburgh is one of seven in the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC),, although Edinburgh was originally part of the Archdiocese of St Andrews. When Charles I formed the Diocese of Edinburgh in 1633, William Forbes became the first bishop and Knox’s former church, Saint Giles’, became the cathedral.

When episcopacy was abolished yet again in 1637, Saint Giles’ lost its status as a cathedral, but it was restored as a cathedral when episcopacy was reintroduced in 1661. When the Church of Scotland reverted to Presbyterianism in 1688, Saint Giles’ became the ‘High Kirk’ once again.

The last bishop at Saint Giles’, Bishop Alexander Rose of Edinburgh, left the cathedral in 1689 accompanied by much of his congregation, finding a new place of worship in an old wool store in Carrubber’s Close, close to the present site of Old Saint Paul’s Church.

Later Bishops of Edinburgh included Daniel Sandford (1806-1830), who was born in Dublin in 1766, and John Dowden (1886-1910), who was born in Cork in 1840.

For centuries, the SEC had no cathedrals and many churches, including Old Saint Paul’s and Saint Paul’s in York Place, served as the ‘pro-cathedral’ in Edinburgh until Saint Mary’s Cathedral was built in Palmerston Place in the 1870s.

The sisters Barbara and Mary Walker left all their property for building a new cathedral, and Sir George Gilbert Scott was chosen as the architect. Scott’s design was inspired by the early Gothic churches and abbeys of Scotland. The foundation stone was laid in 1874 and the cathedral was consecrated in 1879. The Chapter House was added in 1890 and the west spires in 1913-1917.

With the Revd Dr Alan McCormack (then Dean of Residence, Trinity College Dublin), and Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain (then Archbishop of Hong Kong) at Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome in 2005

There were so many other churches named after Saint Paul that I could have looked at this afternoon. I have often passed by Saint Paul’s Church in Cambridge on my way from the railway station to Sidney Sussex, and its story includes an interesting Irish connection that I must write about at some stage. I have memories of visiting Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome in 2005 when I was chair of the Dublin University Far Eastern Mission (DUFEM) and took part in a conference on the Church in China.

There are memories too of visiting Saint Paul’s, Cordoba, and of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Nicosia, where they named me in the intercessions on the mornings of my ordination as deacon in 2000 and priest in 2001.

The small Church of Saint Paul (Agios Pavlos) in the Rethymnon region in Crete is near a secluded bay and beach associated with the Apostle Paul’s journey to Rome. But my closing image this afternoon is of sunset at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon, on the north coast of Crete.


30 seconds at sunset at Pavlos Beach in Platanias, east of Rethymnon on the north coast of Crete (Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Advent 2025: 15, Sunday 14 December 2025

‘Outsiders Welcome … Whatever your story, Christmas starts with Christ’ … one of the posters in the Advent resources from Joy for All

Patrick Comerford

We are more half-way into the Season of Advent, and the countdown to Christmas is gathering pace. Today is the Third Sunday of Advent (Advent III, 14 December 2025), or Gaudete Sunday. In addition, tonight in the Jewish calendar is also the first night in Hanukkah, which continues until next Sunday night (21 December 2025).

Later this morning, I hope to be involved in the Parish Eucharist, reading one of the lessons in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint John the Baptist in a fresco by the Cretan iconographer, Alexandra Kaouki, in Rethymnon

Matthew 11: 2-11 (NRSVA):

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ 4 Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’

7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.”

11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’

Saint John the Baptist with his mother, Saint Elizabeth, in a stained glass window in Dingle, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Third Sunday of Advent is often known as Gaudete Sunday and is traditionally associated with Saint John the Baptist. The third, pink candle we light on the Advent Wreath this morning is a reminder of Saint John the Baptist.

We already met Saint John the Baptist by the banks of the River Jordan in the Gospel reading last Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent (Matthew 3: 1-12, 7 December 2025).

Do you remember how Saint John is taken aback when he first meets Christ? He comes across full of confidence and certainty. He announces the coming of Christ with great hope and expectation, bursting with energy. Yet, when Christ comes to him to be baptised, is there even a hint that John is a little reluctant to baptise him?

Have you ever wondered why John does not know who Jesus is? After all, not only has he baptised him and hailed him, he is also his cousin. Considering how close to one another their mothers Mary and Elizabeth have been in life, why would John now not know who Jesus is?

Is this not the same John who leapt with joy in his mother’s womb when he realised he was in the presence of the unborn Christ (see Luke 1: 44)?

Have you ever wondered why John was not one of the disciples?

We move on quite a bit by the Third Sunday of Advent. It is a week later in the lectionary readings, but many months after Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan. Saint John the Baptist has preached himself hoarse about looking forward to one who is more powerful than he is. However, since then Jesus has not been wielding power in the way John may have hoped for or may have been expecting.

Now, as John waits in prison, about to lose his head, perhaps he wonders whether he made a mistake in thinking Jesus is the Messiah. Perhaps he is feeling discouraged and doubtful as he sends messengers to ask Jesus: ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’

The simple answer for Christ might have been: ‘Yes.’

Instead, however, Christ points Saint John, the messengers and the crowd to the signs of the Kingdom. Echoing the Prophet Isaiah, he points out that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the dead are raised and the poor receive good news.

These are not mere claims, but incontrovertible proof. Yet, apparently, there are some who take offence at Christ. Perhaps even Saint John the Baptist has been disappointed because his expectations of the Messiah are not being fulfilled by Christ. He is hardly the king of the coming kingdom – after all, he is not ‘dressed in soft robes’. The term ‘soft robes,’ used twice in verse 8, has resonances of self-indulgence, perhaps even selfish and sexual indulgence.

Is this what gives rise to Saint John’s doubts?

Is Jesus the one John the Baptist has been expecting?

When Saint John’s disciples return and tell him what Christ has told them, does Saint John conclude that Jesus is not the Messiah he has been waiting for?

Does John think he has been waiting for the wrong kind of Messiah?

How often have you waited expectantly – for Christmas, for a Christmas present, for a new job, for a major family milestone, for the move to a new home – only to face the realisation that your expectations have not been fulfilled? Yet another pair of socks? The wrong job with low pay, high expectations and bad conditions? The family milestone overturned by a family crisis? The new home has horrid neighbours or no access to appropriate schools and public transport?

Picture Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, lonely and empty by the side of the road, waiting forever for Godot who never arrives.

Picture Eleanor Rigby in the lyrics of the Beatles, waiting alone at the window, alone among the lonely people.

Picture Saint John the Baptist, waiting in the cell where he has been imprisoned by Herod the Great.

Now he is tired. He has grown discouraged. He is questioning. He is like us. He jumps to hope with power and aggressiveness. But later, when he is dispirited, he has questions, and he has doubts. Is Jesus really the Christ he is looking for?

What happened to the John the Baptist who said Jesus would chop down fruitless trees and throw chaff into the fire?

Has Jesus spent his ministry throwing chaff into the fire?

No, it seems not. And so Saint John sends his own disciples, to ask: ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we wait for another?’

Has Jesus come in a way that John does not expect? Should he and his disciples look for another?

Christ refers to the signs of the Kingdom in Isaiah. Saint John is ‘more than a prophet’, for he heralds the dawn of the final era of history and he announces the coming of the Kingdom. Now Christ validates John’s ministry as a true prophet, quoting a prophecy from Malachi in verse 10, and then equating John’s ministry with the returned Elijah.

Christ criticises the people who went out to see John the Baptist in the wilderness with the wrong expectations. What they actually saw was greater than they could ever imagine. Yet even John, great as he is, only points the way to an even greater reality. Now the fulfilment of this promise is beginning to be worked out and to be seen.

When we are disappointed, when our expectations of the coming Kingdom are dashed, is it because we are not looking for the signs of the Kingdom that are all around us?

The gift of Christ is precious, but does this gift always meet my expectations, your expectations?

Are we prepared to look around and notice new places where Jesus is working and living? If you were told: ‘Go and tell John what you see and hear,’ where would you say you see and hear Christ at work today?

I am not blind, lame, leprous, deaf, poor, downtrodden, dead … surely? Am I?

Christ comes in humility for the humble. He comes for those who do not have it all worked out for themselves. These, he tells John’s messengers, of his Advent, of the coming Kingdom of Justice and Mercy.

We have an opportunity to echo that yes this Advent.

As a sign, as a symbol, of how we can join in that ‘Yes,’ the Church of England and other churches are displaying posters at bus stops across the country that say ‘Yes’ to the people who are being targeted and victimised by the far-right. The slogans on the posters include ‘Outsiders Welcome’ and ‘Christ has always been in Christmas’.

This is a part of the response of the Joint Public Issues Team, a partnership that also involves the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, offering a ‘rapid response resource’ for local churches trying to navigate the complexities of Christian nationalism and the co-option of Christian language and symbols – including Christmas – for a nationalist agenda.

These posters say ‘Yes’ to the people who cross borders, who face a dangerous ‘No’ along the way, who face violence and the dangers of human trafficking, who find themselves in the wilderness or are imprisoned in their present circumstances and living conditions. They offer words of comfort and challenge the words of hatred by the hard-right protesters seeking to hijack the labels and messages of Christmas.

This is one way we can share our hope for, our belief in, the coming Christ and the coming Christmas this Advent. We too can be signs of faith, or hope, in the promises of the coming kingdom and the promises of Christ’s coming in Advent.

‘The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist’ (1608) by Caravaggio in Saint John’s Co-cathedral in Valletta, the capital of Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers:

The theme this week (14 to 20 December 2025) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Floating Church’ (pp 10-11). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Sister Veronica of the Community of the Sisters of the Church in Melanesia:

‘I have the privilege of serving a large and diverse mission field. As Provincial Sister of the Community of the Sisters of the Church, my fellow sisters and I serve the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM), sometimes called ‘the floating church,’ which stretches across more than 1,000 islands in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

‘Our ministry takes many forms. At our community headquarters, Tetete Ni Kolivuti, we offer retreats and hospitality. In 2025, ACOM hosted its General Synod there, but we also welcome staff from the local university, Roman Catholic leaders, and anyone in need of rest, reflection, or a space for collaboration.

‘We run a school for children living on coconut and cocoa plantations near Tetete Ni Kolivuti, many of whom would otherwise have no access to education.

‘In Honiara, at the Christian Care Centre, we support women and children who have experienced domestic violence, offering safe accommodation, community meals, and prayer ministry. This is the only institution of its kind in the country.

‘We also undertake mission trips to islands for up to three months, travelling village to village to visit the elderly and sick, lead Bible studies and worship, and share the Sisters’ way of life. It is a life of service, rooted in faith and guided by the needs of the communities we are privileged to serve.’

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today (the Third Sunday of Advent) as we read and meditate on Matthew 11: 2-11.

The Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

We give you thanks, O Lord, for these heavenly gifts;
kindle in us the fire of your Spirit
that when your Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth,
to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘The Baptism of Christ’ by Paolo Veronese in the Church of Il Redentore in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

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

A return visit to Saint Francis Xavier, the Jesuits’ classical-style church on Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin

Saint Francis Xavier Church, or Gardiner Street Church, Dublin … designed by Bartholomew Esmonde and Joseph B Keane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Today, the Church Calendar remembers the great Jesuit saint and missionary, Saint Francis Xavier. During my visit to Dublin this week, I visited Saint Francis Xavier Church, popularly known as Gardiner Street Church, the Jesuit-run church on Upper Gardiner Street, near Mountjoy Square.

Gardiner Street Church has associations with many famous Dubliners, including James Joyce, but this was my first time to visit the church since the funeral of Seán MacBride almost 40 years ago in January 1988.

The church was one of the first to be built in Dublin after Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The church was designed by the Jesuit priest Father Bartholomew Esmonde working with the architect Joseph B Keane, as a classical cut granite stone essay. An earlier chapel at 30 Hardwicke Street was opened by Father Charles Aylmer SJ in 1816, the first public chapel of the restored Society of Jesus.

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing east … the church was built in 1829-1835 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The four founders of Gardiner Street church were Father Peter Kenny, Father Bartholomew Esmonde, Father Charles Aylmer and Archbishop Daniel Murray. The foundation stone was laid by Father Charles Aylmer on 2 July 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, and Archbishop Murray on 3 May 1832 celebrated the first Mass in the church on 3 May 1832 at a temporary altar. The church was solemnly blessed by Archbishop Murray on 12 February 1835 in the presence of 14 bishops and a large congregation.

The church is considered one of the best executed churches of the period. The architectural historian Christine Casey describes it in her book Dublin as ‘the most elegant church of the period in Dublin’. The building is known for its sculpted altar piece and paintings, mostly Italian in origin and dating from the Victorian period.

Father Bartholomew Esmonde (1789-1862) was a Jesuit priest, educator, and amateur architect. He was superior of the Society of Jesus in Ireland briefly in 1820. He was born on 12 December 1789, the second son of Dr John Esmonde and Helen (née O’Callan) of Sallins, Co Kildare. His father was executed by hanging on 13 June 1798 for his part in leading the United Irishmen at the Battle of Prosperous in Co Kildare in the 1798 Rising.

The High Altar and sanctuary in Saint Francis Xavier Church … the high altar was designed in Rome by Bartholomew Esmonde (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bartholomew Esmonde was a younger brother of Sir Thomas Esmonde (1786-1868), 9th Baronet, MP for Wexford. He was educated at the Jesuit novitiate at Stonyhurst College, England and studied philosophy and theology in Palermo, Italy. Esmonde returned to Ireland as Master of Novices at Clongowes Wood College and later served as Rector of Clongowes, where his nephews, Sir John Esmonde (1826-1876), later the tenth baronet, and Colonel Thomas Esmonde VC (1829-1872), went to school.

Bartholomew Esmonde lived in Rome from 1842 and then in Malta, returning to Ireland in 1850. He died on 15 December 1862. His brother Sir Thomas Esmonde commissioned a portrait of him in the Jesuit building in Gardner Street and a monument in Saint Michael’s Church, Gorey, Co Wexford.

His nephew, Colonel Thomas Esmonde (1829-1872), was decorated with the Victoria Cross for his role in the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War. His daughter Eva Esmonde married James Charles Comerford (1842-1907), of Ardavon, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, and their children included the Irish Republican activist Maire Comerford (1893-1982).

Inside Saint Francis Xavier Church facing west … the organ is played in the 1991 film ‘The Commitments’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Dublin-born architect John Benjamin Keane, who worked closely with Esmonde in designing Gardiner Street Church, also designed courthouses in Tralee, Co Kerry (1828), Tullamore, Co Offaly (1832), Downpatrick, Co Down (1832-1834), and Nenagh, Co Tipperary (1842). It is said he designed the courthouse in Carlow (1830-1834), but this was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison and is modelled on the Temple on the Ilissus in Athens.

Keane also designed Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, and Saint John’s Roman Catholic Church, Waterford. He also worked with Sir Richard Morrison on the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin and with AWN Pugin and Patrick Byrne on the designs for the Loreto Convent chapel and lantern in Rathfarnham.

He first appears in records in 1819, as an assistant to Richard Morrison. Some biographical sources say that Keane was trained as an architect at the Office of Works, Dublin, but this has been questioned. By 1823, he was working independently. He exhibited regularly with the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1828 to 1841.

Keane designed the Gothic Revival quadrangle at Queen’s College, Galway (now NUI Galway) in 1845 very much in the fashion of Christ Church College, Oxford. His other buildings include Ballybay House, Co Monaghan (1830), Belleek Manor, Ballina, Co Mayo (1831), Tullamore Courthouse (1835), the Mausoleum at Oak Park, Co Carlow (1841), the courthouses in Nenagh (1843), Waterford (1849) and Ennis (1852), Saint John’s Church, Waterford (1845), and Barmouth Castle, Co Louth.

He was the engineer on the River Suir navigation in 1846-1848. Towards the end of his life, it appears Keane suffered from alcoholism, falling into debt and was jailed in Marshalsea gaol. He died on 7 October 1859.

The cast-iron foliated pulpit with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Esmonde’s design of Gardiner Street church is informed by his knowledge of the temples of Italy when he lived there. Esmonde and Keane based their designs on Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in Paris, designed by Louis-Hippolyte Lebas ca1824, and on the Jesuits’ mother church in Rome, the Church of the Gesù, with a nave with low side chapels, shallow transepts and a deep apsidal chancel.

There are differences, however, with the roof in Saint Francis Xavier’s flat and coffered, while at the Gesù, it is barrel-vaulted.

The church is significant for its use of native granite for the portico and the fact that it was completed within a relatively short period of time. The apse was originally rectangular and shallow, but was enlarged in 1851, and this was further influenced by the style of the Gesù.

‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Outside, the figures on top of the front pediment, the Sacred Heart, Saint Ignatius and Saint Francis Xavier, are by the sculptor Terence Farrell (1798-1876). The Latin text on the pediment is Deo Uni Et Trino Sub Invoc S Francisci Xaverii , ‘To God one and Three under the invocation of Saint Francis Xavier’.

It is said Father Esmonde designed and assembled the High Altar in Rome. The paintings and sculpture inside the church include the ‘Madonna and Child’ by Ignazio Jacometti (1881), ‘The Agony in the Garden’ by Jacques Augustin Dieudonne (1848, bought in 1853) and ‘Saint Francis Xavier preaching in Japan’ (1860) over the High Altar by Bernardo Celantano (1835-1863).

There is a cast-iron foliated pulpit, with the ‘IHS’ monogram of the Society of Jesus and gilded portrait heads of ‘Christ Crowned with Thorns’ and the ‘Sorrowful Mother of Christ’, and a balustraded timber rail between the nave and the transept. The retention of these interior fittings is of considerable importance in church architecture.

Four oil paintings in the nave are attributed to Pietro Gagliardi (Rome) and were hung in church when Father Nicholas Walsh was the rector (1877-1884).

The organ has been rebuilt several times, always in original organ case. The original instrument was made by Flight and Robson (London) in 1836, and was bought by the Jesuits for 800 guineas.

The Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The presbytery is on the north side of the church and the Convent of the Sisters of Charity is on the south side. Together, these three form part of a group of impressive ecclesiastical buildings that standing out among the Georgian terraces on the street.

The Jesuits opened a school at Hardwicke Street close to Gardiner Street church in 1832, and this later became Belvedere College on Denmark Street. The church also has close associations with Mother Mary Aikenhead and the early days of the Irish Sisters of Charity.

Over the years, many well-known people have been associated with Saint Francis Xavier’s Church. Matt Talbot, regarded by some as the patron of people struggling with alcoholism, prayed there each morning. John Henry Newman celebrated Mass there when he lived on Dorset Street in 1854. The funeral of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was held in the church in 1889.

The church was also the place where Father James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898.

The church features in James Joyce’s short story ‘Grace’ in Dubliners and in the 1991 film The Commitments, the church organ is used to play A Whiter Shade of Pale. Many Dubliners also know the church hall, known as the SFX Hall.

The shrine of Blessed John Sullivan in the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Father John Sullivan, who was based at the church for a short time in 1907, was beatified (declared blessed) in the church, and he is now buried in the church.

John Sullivan (1861-1933) was a Jesuit priest known for his life of deep spiritual reflection and personal sacrifice, and for his dedicated work among the poor. He taught at Clongowes Wood College, Clane, Co Kildare, from 1907 until he died in 1933.

He was born on 8 May 1861 at 41 Eccles Street, Dublin, a son of Sir Edward Sullivan (1822-1885), later the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and he was baptised in Saint George’s Church of Ireland parish church, Hardwicke Place, on 15 July 1861. Later that year, the family moved to 32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin.

He attended Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, studied classics at Trinity College Dublin, and studied for the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London. He then travelled across Europe, visiting southern Italy, Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor, and spent several months in a monastery on Mount Athos.

As a barrister, he was appointed in 1895 to a commission to investigate the massacre of Armenians in Adana, Asia Minor. He joined the Roman Catholic Church at Farm Street Church in Mayfair, London, on 21 December 1896.

From 1900, Sullivan studied with the Jesuits at Tullabeg, near Tullamore, Co Offaly, Stonyhurst and Milltown Park. Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin ordained Sullivan priest in the chapel at Milltown Park in 1907. He said his first Mass at Mount Saint Anne’s convent, Milltown, and was based in Gardiner Street. He then taught at Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit-run school near Clane, Co Kildare. For five years he was the rector of the Jesuit house at Rathfarnham Castle (1919-1924), but then returned to teaching at Clongowes Wood.

He died in Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin, on 19 February 1933 with his brother Sir William Sullivan at his side. He was buried at Clongowes Wood, but his body was moved to the Sacred Heart Chapel in Gardiner Street Church in 1960.

The chapel of the Virgin Mary in Saint Francis Xavier Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Archbishop George Simms spoke at a memorial service on 8 May 1983, to honour Sullivan’s life and work in Saint George’s Church, where Sullivan was baptised. The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, Bishop James Kavanagh, brought greetings from Pope John Paul II.

His beatification was celebrated in Dublin in Saint Francis Xavier Church on 13 May 2017, the first ever beatification to take place in Ireland.

• The Church Co-ordinator (parish priest) is Father Brendan Comerford SJ. Sunday Masses are Sunday 9:15 am, 11 am and 7.30 pm; weekday Masses (Monday to Friday) are at 11 am and 1 pm; Saturday Masses are at 11 am, 1 pm and 6 pm. Gardiner Street Gospel Choir sings at the 7:30 Sunday Mass, except on bank holiday weekends.

A statue of Saint Patrick in Gardiner Street Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s Church was the first church built in Oxford on a new site since the Middle Ages

Saint Clement’s Church, built in the 1820s, was the first church in Oxford on a new site since the Middle Ages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have been walking around the St Clement’s area, just east of central Oxford, and I have written about two of the pubs, the Port Mahon and Oranges and Lemons, as well as Saint Ignatius Chapel, the first post-Reformation Roman Catholic place of worship in Oxford, which I was discussing yesterday (18 October 2025).

Saint Ignatius is also associated with John Henry Newman (1801-1890). But for two years Newman was a curate in Saint Clement’s parish, and he was one of the key figures for raising a new Saint Clement’s Church, built in the 1820s and the first church in Oxford built on a new site since the Middle Ages.

Despite these links with Newman, who became a leading figure in the Tractarian or Oxford Movement and was later one of the most prominent Roman Catholics thinker in England, Saint Clement’s Church is now, ironically, one of the prominent evangelical churches in Oxford.

Saint Clement’s Church church dates from the 1820s, but replaced a much older building demolished in 1829 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The present church dates from the 1820s, but replaced a much older building that was demolished in 1829. Saint Clement’s Church originally stood at what is now the Plain roundabout, where the roads from London and Henley cross the River Cherwell at Magdalen Bridge. It served both the small community of Bruggeset (‘Bridge Settlement’) that surrounded it as well as the largely rural area that eventually became East Oxford.

The first written record mentioning the church was in 1122 when it was one of the royal chapels given to Saint Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I. One source thinks the church may have been built in connection with a Danish garrison sometime between 1016 and the 1050s. This would explain its location close to a bridge and its dedication to Saint Clement which was unusual at inland sites at this time.

Saint Clement’s was one of the royal chapels given to Saint Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I in 1122. The Abbot of Oseney afterwards claimed that Saint Clement’s belonged to his church of Sain George in Oxford Castle, but renounced those claims. The Abbot of Eynsham also claimed Saint Clement’s Church at one time.

Almost nothing is known of the appearance of the earliest church, but recent studies suggests a stone head now in the Ashmolean Museum may have originally been a brightly painted stone corbel from the 13th century church, suggesting a church that was rich in colour and carved stonework.

Funds were granted in 1323 to rebuild ‘the Church of Saint Clement beyond Petty Pont’ (Magdalen Bridge). From 1122 to ca 1534, clergy were presented to Saint Clement’s by Saint Frideswide’s Priory, and from the late 15th century the rectors were usually graduates.

Following the Tudor Reformation in the 1530s, the patronage passed briefly to Cardinal College, now Christ Church, Oxford. The patronage of Saint Clements’s has then held by the crown until the mid-19th century. In 1540 it was reported that the benefice had long been vacant and the parishioners without divine offices. Most of those instituted by the Crown were fellows of Oxford colleges.

John Henry Newman was appointed curate in 1824 to help raise money for a new Saint Clement’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

During the Siege of Oxford (1644-1646) in the English Civil War, the church and parish were on the front line between the Parliamentarian forces on Headington Hill and the Royalists in the city. It was reported that ‘no parish suffered more severely’, with whole streets being demolished to facilitate the building of fortifications. Yet, the 17th century Black Horse Inn and the church were among the few buildings to survive.

Later rectors included Humphrey Prideaux (1679-1682), later Dean of Lincoln; Robert Harsnett (1682-1696), a nonjuror dismissed for not swearing allegiance to William and Mary; and John Conybeare (1724-1734 ), later Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and Bishop of Bristol.

John Peshall, writing in 1773, describes a church composed of one aisle 13 yards long (exclusive of a chancel) and six yards and 20 inches broad. There were galleries in the north-east and west side and small capped tiled tower with three bells. The churchyard was extended in 1781, and the capped tower was replaced by a square tower in 1816.

With slum clearances in Oxford in the early 1800s, St Clement’s expanded rapidly, with over 300 new houses were built between 1821 and 1824. The old church, with seating for 250, became too small, and plans was drawn up to build a new church on a new site.

, The rector at the time, the Revd John Gutch (1746-1831), the editor of Anthony Wood's History of Oxford University was by then approaching his 80s; he was also chaplain of All Souls College and still holding on as the Registrar of Oxford University. A curate was needed to help him to raise money for a new church.

John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman and then Saint John Henry Newman, was the curate in 1824-1826. Although Newman was only at Saint Clement’s for two years, he had an enormous impact on the parish. He visited every home in the parish, started a Sunday school and preached regularly to a packed church. Some suspected him of being a Methodist, but others were happy that at last they had ‘a proper minister’.

Newman added a gallery to accommodate a new Sunday school in 1825, and his friend and later a fellow Tractarian Edward Pusey (1800-1882) provided a stove for the children.

The liturgical east end of Saint Clement’s Church, Oxford, built in 1825-1828 on land donated by Sir Joseph Lock (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Thanks to Newman’s fundraising, a new church was built by John Hudson of Oxford in 1825-1828 on land in Hacklingcroft Meadow, given by Sir Joseph Lock (1760-1844), a local banker and goldsmith. The subscribers to the new building included Keble, Pusey, Heber and Peel.

Initially, a design along the lines of Salisbury Cathedral or a Grecian temple was suggested. But the parish settled on an Anglo-Norman design for reasons of cost.

The architect was Daniel Robertson, who also designed the Clarendon Press buildings on Walton Street. Saint Clement’s is an early example of the Anglo-Norman or Romanesque Revival style. It has been described ‘as an interesting example of an abortive Romanesque revival’. It did not appeal to contemporary taste, and one critic called it ‘the boiled rabbit’. The architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner has described it as ‘patently Georgian Norman’.

Robertson planned the new church could seat up to 1,024 people, and the site was chosen in the hope that new housing would expand along Marston Lane, now Marston Road. The original plans placed the church on Marston Lane, but it was moved to its current location as part of a revised plan, subsequently abandoned, to build streets and houses in the form of a square.

The south porch of Saint Clement’s Church … Niklaus Pevsner describes the church as ‘patently Georgian Norman’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s was the first church in Oxford built on a new site since the Middle Ages. The foundation stone was laid in 1825 by the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Richard Jenkyns (1782-1854), later Dean of Wells, and the church was consecrated on 14 June 1828.

An unforeseen consequence, however, was that Saint Clement’s did not automatically become the parish church when it was consecrated. This was not realised at the time, and a special Act of Parliament had to be passed in 1836 to ensure the legality of all the marriages in the new church.

Although I was unable to see the inside of Saint Clement’s, I understand the east window (geographical north) shows 10 scenes from the life of Christ. It was commissioned in 1846 and is the work of Isaac Hugh Russell, who lived and worked in St Clement’s. The four north windows (geographical west) depict scenes on the theme of faith. They were made in memory of James Morrell (1810-1863) by A and WH O’Connor for Saint Martin’s Church, Carfax in 1865, and were moved to Saint Clement’s in 1896, when Saint Martin’s was demolished.

The ‘Seven Churches’ window (1908) in the north-west corner was given by Morrell family and is based on the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (see Revelation 1: 12 to 3: 22). It was designed by Powell & Sons of Whitefriars Glassworks, London, who were closely associated with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

The interior had a major refurbishment in the 1870s. The original Georgian box-pews and benches were replaced in 1871 by ‘Neo-Norman’ pews, arranged in four blocks divided by a newly tiled nave and two newly positioned side aisles. The West Gallery was taken down in 1876.

The refurbishment was carried out by Edward George Bruton (1826-1899), an Oxford-based architect who specialised in church commissions in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and were largely funded by the Morrell brewing family of Headington Hill Hall.

The liturgical west door of Saint Clement’s … the church has been described ‘as an interesting example of an abortive Romanesque revival’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s first organ was bought in 1846 and installed in the west gallery. It was moved to the south-east corner of the church next to the chancel in 1876 when the gallery was demolished.

A new organ was built by Martin and Coate in 1897-1899, and the old organ was sold to Saint Paul’s Church, Walton Street, later Freud’s nightclub. The new organ was first used at the service for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897, and was rebuilt by Nicholson’s of Worcester in 1952.

The patronage passed to a series of trustees belonging to the evangelical tradition. With a radical change in liturgical style, the organ fell into disuse in the late 20th century and was removed in early 2020. Many of the pipes were installed at the Basilica of Saint Dominic in Valletta, Malta, earlier this year (2025).

Saint Clement’s has three bells, all brought from the old church in the 1820s. One was cast in the 13th century and is the oldest bell in Oxford.

At first, the churchyard at the new church was small, but the Morrell family added 556 sq m of land in 1879, and a further 0.4 ha in 1920, partly to provide a setting for a war memorial erected in 1921.

The old churchyard at the Plain was still in use until the 1870s and it was taken over by the City Council in 1939. The last traces of the old churchyard were destroyed in 1950, when a roundabout was made on the Plain.

The planting scheme of limes along the drive continues into Headington Hill Park where they lined the carriageway up to Headington Hill Hall.

Saint Clement’s Mission Hall at 57A St Clement’s was designed by HW Moore and built in 1887-1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Clement’s was reordered several times in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with the addition of a crèche and kitchen, a dais in the chancel area and disabled access. The organ and several pews were removed in 2020-2022 to create a different layout.

Saint Clement’s Church is linked to two charities, both chaired by the rector. The Dawson Trust or Dawson’s Charity, established in 1521, owns property in St Clement’s used to relieve poverty and to maintain the church. The Parochial Charities of Saint Clement Oxford was formed in 1958 and recently merged with Dawson’s Charity. It was formed through the consolidation of three earlier charities, including John Pyke’s Charity and William James’s Charity.

Saint Clement’s Mission Hall at 57A St Clement’s was designed by HW Moore and built in 1887-1891. St Clement’s Community Property, formerly St Clement’s Parish Property (1903-2021), owns and maintains a small number of properties including Saint Clement’s Centre, Cross Street, and the Old Mission Hall and former Victoria Café at the corner of St Clement’s Street and Boulter Street.

The parish bought a former Baptist chapel in George Street (now Cave Street) in 1839 and converted it into schools that later moved to Bath Street.

The last traces of the old Saint Clement’s churchyard were destroyed in 1950 when a roundabout was made on the Plain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• Sunday services at Saint Clements’s are at10:30, with ‘All-Age Worship’ on the first Sunday, Holy Communion on the second and fourth Sundays and Morning Worship on the third and fifth Sundays, and an informal service at 18:30, with Communion on the first and third Sundays. The staff includes the Revd Mark Hay, who has been the Rector since April 2024, and the Assistant Curates, the Revd Dr Joanna Tarassenko and the Revd Dr Oliver Wright.

The planting scheme of limes along the drive of Saint Clement’s Church continues into Headington Hill Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)