How many moves in chess? Are there more grains of sand or stars in the sky than there are miles on a long journey?

The ‘Shannon Number’ calculates there are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I arrived in Walsingham in Norfolk, this afternoon for an ecumenical pilgrimage that lasts for much of the week, and I have been invited to speak on Thursday evening. It’s been a long, cross-country journey from Stony Stratford that took all morning, and I am grateful for the lift that has saved an even-longer and complicated journey that would have taken up to six hours, involving a bus to Milton Keynes, a train to Euston, a Tube trip across London, another but much longer train journey from Liverpool Street to King’s Lynn and yet another bus from there to Walsingham.

The journey by public transport this morning, as calculated by Rome to Rio, seems more arduous and more demanding that either of the flights I had last week from Kuala Lumpur to Oman or from Oman to Heathrow, and almost as long and as fraught.

Since three flights last week, and similar flights on the way out to Kuching two weeks before that, I have succumbed to inexplicable bouts of jet lag like nothing I have experienced before, despite all my journeys over the years to both East Asia and the Middle East.

There were six flights in all over those two weeks, and I found it difficult to sleep on any of them. I found it difficult to concentrate enough to read, so instead of counting sheep (21 Across in the Guardian Quick Crossword yesterday), I whiled away my time watching the flight map in front of me or playing Chess.

I thought I would recover some of my chess-playing skills, but it seemed akin to the risks of betting on horses in a bookie’s shop: the computers and those who compute the odds always seem to win.

Waiting to make the opening move … a humorous chess set in a shop window in the Ghetto in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Matt Haig’s novel, The Midnight Library, one of the characters, Mrs Elm, provides a commentary on a game of chess. She points out that at the beginning of a game, ‘there are no variations. There is only one way to set up a board.’ There are 9 million variations after the first six moves. After eight moves, there are 288 billion different positions.

‘And those possibilities keep growing,’ she says.

‘There are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe,’ she tells Nora as she lets her win the game.

This value, known as the Shannon Number, represents all of the possible move variations in the game of chess. It is estimated to be between 10¹¹¹ and 10¹²³. By comparison, there are 10⁸¹ atoms that make up the known universe.

The Shannon Number, named after the US mathematician Claude Shannon (1916-2001), is a conservative lower bound of the game-tree complexity of chess of 10¹²⁰, based on an average of about 10³ possibilities for a pair of moves consisting of a move for White followed by a move for Black, and a typical game lasting about 40 such pairs of moves.

Considering chess is a human invention, and that it allows us to imagine something greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, how much more majestic, divine and sublime is it to consider the number of stars and the grains of sand?

In the Biblical story of Abraham in the Book of Genesis, Abraham is worried about his survival, his future, and what is going to happen after he dies, for he has no children and so has no heirs.

God brings Abraham outside and says to him, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he says to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’ (Genesis 15: 1-5)

In the Psalms, we are told that God’s counsels are ‘more in number than the sand’ (Psalm 139: 17-18), and if were to count them all we would still be in God’s presence. It is a majestic image of the scope of God’s presence.

But, how many stars are in the sky?

And, how many grains of sand cover the earth’s beaches?

Did you ever look up on a clear bright night and ask how many stars can I see above?

When I look up into the night sky, it stretches out in a pitch-black canvas washed with streaks and studs of brightness. We are surrounded by light that has travelled the expanse of the universe to reach our eyes. And it makes me feel tiny and enormous at one and the same time.

But how many stars do I actually see?

There is really no definitive answer to this question. No one has counted all the stars in the night sky, and astronomers use different numbers as theoretical estimates.

Considering all the stars visible in all directions around Earth, some estimates say there are between 5,000 and 10,000 visible stars. But that’s just the stars visible to the naked eye tonight.

But why limit my calculations and my imagination to my own failing, aging, shortsighted pair of eyes?

Why should I simply marvel at the majesty and mystery of it all when I can do some calculations and think of how many stars are visible to God?

Let me start with the galaxies. Astronomers estimate there are around 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe, stretching out over a radius of some 45.7 billion light years.

Those galaxies vary in terms of the numbers of stars they contain. Some galaxies have more than a trillion stars. Some giant elliptical galaxies have 100 trillion stars. There are also tiny dwarf galaxies – tiny, of course, is a relative term here – some tiny dwarf galaxies that have significantly fewer stars.

On the other hand, the Milky Way, our little corner of the observable universe, has 400 billion stars alone.

So, if we multiply the estimated average number of stars in each galaxy by the number of galaxies in the observable universe – and carry the billion, &c – I get a rough estimate of all the stars I am capable of observing. And what I find is there are roughly a septillion stars in the observable universe. That brings us to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars (10²⁴, or 1 followed by 24 zeros). Which is, well, put simply, an awesome lot of stars.

Other astronomers calculate that there are 10 stars for every grain of sand, 11 times the number of cups of water in all the Earth’s oceans, 10,000 times the number of wheat kernels that have ever been produced on Earth, and 10 billion times the number of cells in a human being.

This is a staggering number: 70 sextillion (or 7 followed by 22 zeros or 70 thousand million million million) stars in the observable universe.

This too is probably a very, very low estimate because the number of galaxies filling the Universe is thought to be much larger than those the Hubble can see.

In his 1980 bestseller, Cosmos, the astronomer Carl Sagan wrote that there are more stars in the heavens than all the grains of sands covering the world’s beaches. He calculated that a handful of sand contains about 10,000 separate grains.

So, how many grains of sand cover the earth’s beaches?

Some years ago, researchers at the University of Hawaii tried to calculate this number by dividing the volume of an average sand grain by the volume of sand covering the Earth’s shorelines.

The volume of sand was obtained by multiplying the length of the world’s beaches by their average width and depth. The number they calculated was seven quintillion five quadrillion (that is 7.5 followed by 17 zeros or 7.5 billion billion) grains of sand.

And that is a lot of sand. And, to be fair, I gave up playing chess in the early hours of Friday morning under the star-lit skies, probably somewhere over the peaks of Mount Sinai, the shores of the Red Sea, or the sandy beaches of Crete, places I intend to refer to when I talk about pilgrimage later this week.

How many grains of sand are there by the sea? The town beach by the old harbour in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Katherine’s, a Greek Orthodox community in Friern Barnet and how it has found new life in an old church

Saint Katherine’s Church, the Greek Orthodox Church in Friern Barnet, is surrounded by a large wooded churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a day recently visiting Saint Katherine’s Church, the Greek Orthodox Church in Friern Barnet, where the parish priest, Archimandrite Damianos Konstantinou Introduced me to the church and the area around Friern Barnet, Finchley, Mill Hill and Golder’s Green. His parish has a large population of Greek Cypriots and Greek-speaking families.

Father Damian and I were introduced through a number of mutual friends, including the writer Richar Pine, a regular contributor to The Irish Times and founder of the Durrell School of Corfu, where I lectured in 2006, Euthymius Petrou in Athens and Father Gregory Wellington of the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford.

Over the day, our conversations ranged across a vast range of shared interests, from Sir Richard Church, Sir Charles Napier and the Irish Philhellenes and the folk music of Zakynthos to Epitaphios processions in Corfu, from the current crisis at Saint Katherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai and the plight of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, to Italian opera, the songs of Maria Farandouri and modern Greek poetry.

Inside Saint Katherine’s Church, facing towards the iconostasis, the altar and the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Katherine’s Greek Orthodox Church is picturesque country church in Friern Park that dates from 1853 and that was originally known as Saint James’s Church. The church stands on the corner of Friern Barnet Lane and Friary Road, on the main north-south road through the village. The church is surrounded by 20th century housing but retains its large wooded churchyard.

Friern Barnet was once a small, rural parish seven miles north of London. Its original name, Little Barnet, distinguished it from the larger part of Barnet that was in Hertfordshire.

The story of this church goes back 800 years to a time when there was a friary in the area serving pilgrims on their way to and from St Albans. The manor later called Friern Barnet or Whetstone seems to have been held by St Albans Abbey before the Conquest, but it was taken from that abbey by William I and apparently given to the Bishop of London.

Inside Saint Katherine’s Church, facing the west end from the iconostasis and the altar at the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A church was first mentioned in 1187, probably Saint James’s. By the late 12th century, the lands in Barnet were held by John Picot from the Bishop of London. By 1199, Bishop Gilbert Foliot or his successor Richard FitzNeal had given these lands to the Knights Hospitaller, following Picot’s surrender of them.

The name of Friern Barnet did not appear before 1294 and reflected the lordship of the Brotherhood of the Knights Hospitaller.

With the dissolution of the monastic houses and the Hospitallers in 1540 the manor of Friern Barnet passed to the Crown and then to Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

The 12th century Romanesque south doorway was restored and reset by the Habershon brothers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original Norman church was a simple one with of a nave and chancel with a south porch and a wooden west tower. The church today consists of a chancel with a north vestry, a nave with south aisle, a porch and a tower with a shingled spire at the south-west. The exterior is of flint, with stone dressings. The Friern Barnet Parishioners War Memorial stands in the churchyard.

Today’s church owes its appearance to a major restoration and enlargement in 1853 by the brothers William Habershon (1819-1892) and Edward Habershon (1826-1900). The Habershon brothers specialised in neo-gothic buildings, especially churches and chapels. They increased the seating capacity of the church from 200 to 500 and reset the 12th century Romanesque south doorway – although it is heavily restored, many of the original stones survive.

The 1853 tower collapsed in 1930 and was rebuilt on the same plan.

An octagonal parish room, the Jubilee Hall, was added on the north side of the nave in 1977, and it is reached through the church by the north nave doorway.

The Jubilee Hall, an octagonal parish room, was added on the north side of the church in 1977 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint John the Evangelist Church on Friern Barnet Lane was built in 1910 as a chapel-of-ease to Saint James’s, which was no longer large enough for the expanding population.

Saint James’s continued to serve the parish until 2009, when Church of England services for Friern Barnet were transferred to Saint John’s Church on Friern Barnet Road and Saint James’s was leased to the local Greek Orthodox community, who renamed it Saint Katherine’s Church.

Saint Katherine’s Greek Orthodox Community was formally established in 1985, mainly through the efforts and energy of Katina Antoniou. Father Nicodemos Velalopoulos was the first priest, and services were held in a number of local Anglican churches until the parish found space in All Saints’ Church, Whetstone, in 1986.

A large and Greek and Greek Cypriot community have been based in Hendon since the 1960s, with a church and under the leadership of Bishop Aristarchos of Zenoupolis, and later served by Father Andrew Panayiotou from 1986.

An icon of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Saint Katherine’s Church, Friern Barnet (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Six years after the church was founded, it moved in 1992 to Saint Mark’s Church in New Barnet. Father Damian, the Very Revd Archimandrite Damianos Konstantinou, was appointed priest-in-charge of the church 30 years ago in October 1995.

After studying journalism in Athens, he went to Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, and was ordained in Jerusalem, where he served for 11 years in the Patriarchate, and has been a chaplain in the Greek army.

He has also studied theology in Athens, Italian language and culture in Perugia, and teacher training in Nottingham, and he has an MA in Religion and Politics from Saint Mary’s University, London. He has served the Greek Orthodox community in Aylesbury, and was chaplain to the Mayor of Barnet, Pantelitsa Rutte, in 2011-2012. He has a particular interest in the Irish Philhellenes, with a yearning to correct the name of the street in Athens named after Sir Richard Church from Cork.

Saint Katherine’s found a new home at Saint James the Great Church, Friern Barnet, in 2009 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although at first his church services in the new parish were few, there were several community events and significant visits by Archbishop Damianos of Sinai in June 1996 and the late Patriarch Petros of Alexandria in September 1997. The choir of Saint George Karytsis Church in Athens visited in 2000, and sang at the feast day of Saint Catherine and at a millennium concert.

A plan to build a new church in 2004 was never realised. However, Saint Katherine’s found a new home in 2009 at Saint James the Great Church at Friern Barnet Lane. The congregation soon tripled in number and the Jubilee Hall began to host many events.

The hall was upgraded, and work on the church included repairs to the masonry, landscaping, roof cleaning, maintenance of the bell tower and other improvements.

The flame passed outside the church as it was carried through London on 26 July 2012, when the road was bedecked with Greek flags. This was followed by an Olympic Concert in the church.

Father Gregory Wellington was ordained deacon for the church in 2011 and priest in January 2014. He was there as deacon in 2011-2014 and as assistant priest in 2014-2023.

The church had a major renovation at the end of 2016 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

During a major renovation of the church from September 2016, the church found alternative accommodation for three months in All Saints’ Church, Whetstone.

More recently, the church was renovated internally, new lighting was installed along with new electrical installations, flooring and painting, all signs of hope for and an investment in the future of Saint Katherine’s.

When I visited Saint Katherine’s last Tuesday, the south porch was decorated joyfully with flags from Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Romania, the UK and other countries, representing the cultural diversity found in this Orthodox community.

Matins and the Divine Liturgy are celebrated in Saint Katherine’s Church, Friern Barnet, from 9:30 am on Sundays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• The services at Saint Katherine’s Church include Matins and Divine Liturgy on Sundays (9:30 am to 12 noon), on weekdays (9:30 to 11:15 am) and Vespers (Summer 7 pm, Winter 6 pm), with other services according to the Church calendar.

With Archimandrite Damianos Konstantinou (Father Damian) in Saint Katherine’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

16 million lost lives at war, Trump’s $16 million birthday, 16 million shared birthdays and 16 million blog readers

Patrick Comerford

There is a popular birthday available to buy on many online sites that says: ‘You share your birthday with 16 million people. Not so special now, are you?’

I was once fascinated by the many famous or influential people I shared my birthday with. Later, I was amused by the number of Facebook friends I share my birthday with. We think our birthdays are special days for each of us individually, until we realise how many people we share that one day with.

If your birthday falls on any day other than 29 February, the odds of sharing your birthday with anyone you meet should be about 1/365 in the population (0.274%). Since the world population is estimated at over eight billion, you should, in theory, share your birthday with over 22 million people (about 22,054,188).

However, if you were born on 29 February, you share your birthday with just 1/1,461 of the population as 366 + 365 + 365 + 365 is equal to 1,461. Because this day only comes around once every four years, a mere 0.068% of people worldwide share it as their birthday – that’s only about 5,510,000 people!

I was reminded of the significance of the figure 16 million – and of the mathematics of shared birthdays – at the weekend when this blog reached the staggering total of 16 million hits since I first began blogging about 15 years ago, back in 2010. But I almost missed the significance of this figure while I was visiting York and Durham at the weekend.

After I began blogging in 2010, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.

But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal this year, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), and 12 million early in May (3 May 2025).

The figures claimed steadily throughout June, July and August, from 12.5 million early in June (6 June 2025), 13 million less than two weeks later (17 June 2025), 13.5 million a week after that (24 June 2025), 14 million a week later (1 July 2025), 14.5 million ten days later (11 July), 15 million two weeks after that (25 July 2025), 15.5 million less than a month later (23 August 2025), and then 16 million late on Saturday night (6 September 2025).

So far this month, this blog has had over 315,000 hits by noon today. In July, for the third time, this blog had more than a million hits in a single month, with 1,195,456 hits in July; June 2025 was the second month that this blog had more than 1 million hits in one month, with 1,618,488 hits by the end of that month. These figures follow January’s record of 1 million hits by the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025).

So far this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in June, four were in January, and one was two months ago (1 July 2025):

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 82,043 (23 June 2025)
• 81,037 (21 June 2025)

• 80,625 (22 June 2025)
• 79,981 (19 June 2025)
• 79,165 (20 June 2025)
• 69,722 (18 June 2025)
• 69,714 (30 June 2025)
• 69,657 (1 July 2025)

This blog has already had about 6.6 million hits this year, over 40 per cent of all hits ever.

With this latest landmark figure of 16 million hits at the weekend, I once again found myself asking questions such as:

• What do 16 million people look like?
• Where do we find 16 million people?
• What does £16 million, €16 million or $16 million mean?
• What would it buy?

Donald Trump’s birthday military parade on 14 June caused as much as $16 million worth of damage to the streets of Washington DC, according to official figures. The parade, supposedly celebrating the US army’s 250th anniversary, was held on Trump’s own 79th birthday – which he shared with more than 16 million people – and cost around $45 million, including the estimated $16 million worth of damage. The chances of Trump paying this $16 million back to the city and people of Washington are probably not one-in-16 million, less than Nil.

The US media company Paramount Global agreed in July to pay $16 million to settle a legal dispute with Trump over the editing of an interview on CBS News.

The odds against identical boy triplets are 16 million to one.

There are 16 million disabled people in the UK: 11% of children are disabled; 23% of working age adults are disabled; 45% of pension age adults are disabled.

Some 16 million people in the UK suffer from high blood pressure, the biggest risk factor for stroke and heart attacks.

Hackers claimed last month they had leaked 16 million PayPal logins online. While PayPal denied the new breach, experts urged users to reset their passwords.

The Greek government is funding a €16 million restoration project to upgrade the Cave of Zeus or Diktaion Andron, which remains closed throughout this year (2025).

The British government has allocated almost £16 million to Staffordshire County Council this year to improve roads.

Asia has a total area of about 16 million square miles. Russia with a total land area of area of over 16 million sq km (16,376,870 sq km). The journey from London to Calcutta is about 16 million metres (16,000 km). Zimbabwe has a population of about 16 million; 16 million people are more than the combined populations of London, Paris and Rome.

The Canary Islands are visited by over 16 million people, counting both Spanish and non-Spanish visitors.Last year, Morocco emerged as the top tourist destination in Africa, boasting over 16 million arrivals and achieving a new record, while Egypt is experiencing a tourism surge, with almost 16 million tourists visiting last year … a surge in tourism that is directly connected with the current trends that are threatening the future of Mount Sinai and the monastic site at Saint Catherine’s, the world's oldest continuously used Christian monastery, and the plans for a ‘mega-resort’.

The Wall Street crash came on 29 October 1929 after almost 13 million shares were traded on the exchange 24 October 1929, known as ‘Black Thursday’, and over 16 million shares were traded on 29 October 1929, ‘Black Tuesday’. It was followed by the Great Depression that lasted until 1939.

About 16 million lives were lost in World War I.

Once again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

One of the warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics continues to be the one that shows my morning prayer diary reaches an average of 80-85 people each day. It is 3½ years now since I retired from active parish ministry. But I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches averaged or totalled 560 to 580 people a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all 16 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular grateful for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The monks of Mount Sinai have closed Saint Catherine’s Monastery to protest at a court ruling threatening their future

The monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai have closed their gates to all visitors following an Egyptian court ruling last week (Photograph: Friends of Mount Sinai)

Patrick Comerford

The monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai have closed their gates to all visitors in a symbolic act of protest following an Egyptian court ruling last week that threatens the future of the monastery.

According to Greek news reports yesterday, the monastic community of about 20 monks has resolved to remain in seclusion, mourning and praying for the monastery’s protection, and is giving no timeline for reopening.

There is a swelling tide of concern across the Orthodox world and in Greek-speaking community around the world about the future of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai following a disturbing ruling last week by a court in Egypt that appears to threaten the survival of the world’s oldest continually-inhabited Christian monastery.

Saint Catherine’s Monastery was founded in the Sinai Peninsula in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, known for its ancient manuscripts and icons and revered in all three major monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It was there God spoke to Moses through the Burning Bush and gave him the Ten Commandments; it was there Elijah hid in a crag in the rock; and it was there, Muslims believe, Muhammad was a visiting trader prior to the beginnings of Islam, perhaps even visiting Saint Catherine’s Monastery. It said the monastery was granted a letter of protection from Muhammad in the seventh century and this was reaffirmed by the Ottoman Sultan Selim II in the 16th century.

In recent days, Orthodox leaders around the world have reacted with alarm and the Greek government has spoken out strongly after an Egyptian court ruling last week (28 May). The ruling threatens the monastery’s autonomy and its future and raises fears that Saint Catherine’s could be seized by the state and the monks evicted, and fears for religious freedom in Egypt.

With President Mary McAleese welcoming a group of Egyptian Christian and Muslim leaders to at Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin in 2006

I was a guest on Mount Sinai when I visited Egypt several times while I was working on a programme on Christian-Muslim dialogue about 20 years ago. During those visits, I met Christian and Muslim leaders throughout Egypt, wrote for The Irish Times on the monastery’s library. I have stayed in Cairo, where I walked by the Nile and visited the pyramids and the Sphinx; Alexandria, where the dogmatic debates helped produce the Creeds, Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai; and in monasteries in the Western Desert associated with the Desert Fathers.

Perhaps one of the most unusual experiences during those visits was to preside at the Eucharist at dawn at the top of Mount Sinai with a small group, celebrating with bread and wine taken from the dinner table the night before in Saint Catherine’s Monastery.

During those years, I arranged a visit by Irish bishops to meet Christian and Muslim leaders in Egypt, and reciprocal visits to Ireland that included visits to Aras an Uachtaráin and the Chester Beatty Library, a reception in the Egyptian Embassy, events in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the chapel in Trinity College Dublin, and the Irish Islamic Centre in Clonskeagh. In all those exchanges, my work was facilitated and encouraged by the Egyptian embassy in Dublin and the Irish, British and Vatican embassies in Cairo, Egyptian church leaders of all traditions, and the offices of the secretary general of the Arab League.

Of course, interfaith relations and religious freedoms were not perfect in Egypt in those days. But they were an example of how they could be worked on, nurtured and encourage. So, I too am disturbed by last week’s ruling and the way its reopens questions about the vulnerability of religious heritage sites in Egypt and religious freedom for both Muslims and Christians.

A court in Sinai has ruled that the state owns Mount Sinai as public property (Photograph: Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate)

A court in Sinai ruled last Wednesday in a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate, declaring that the monastery ‘is entitled to use’ the land and the archaeological religious sites in the area, all of which ‘the state owns as public property’.

The ruling by the South Sinai Court of First Instance allows for the registration of monastery land in the name of the Egyptian government. The monastery tried to register its land independently in 2012, and submitted documents showing ownership dating back centuries, including the Ottoman decree. But the court ruled that all that evidence is insufficient. The Egyptian General Authority for Land Survey applied in 2021 to register the land as government property, and this request was upheld by the court last week.

The ruling comes in the midst of a controversial government development project is underway to boost visitor numbers to the area, which is popular with both pilgrims and adventure tourists. The area includes a town named after the monastery and a nature reserve. Observers say the project has harmed the ecosystem of the nature reserve and threatens both the monastery and the local community.

The court has effectively turned the area over to the state and the ruling leaves the monastery and the 18-20 monks who live there as tenants at will of the government of the day. The monastic community now fears it is on the brink of eviction and that the entire Sinai Brotherhood is now seen as squatters, disregarding their 15-century presence there.

In a phone conversation on Friday with Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt said Cairo is ‘fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery, and ensuring it is not violated.’

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said rumours of confiscation were ‘completely unfounded’ and denied any change to the monastery’s legal or spiritual status, saying it ‘does not touch the monastery’s spiritual value, religious significance, or the cemeteries associated with it’. It said the ruling ‘preserves the special and sacred status of the monastery.’

But these responses fail to indicate whether the president and the government accept the monastery and its lands are owned by the monastic community of Saint Catherine’s.

The Greek Prime Minister’s office said Mr Mitsotakis emphasised the importance of ‘preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery and resolving the issue in an institutional manner’, based on an agreement between the two countries.

Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Pharan, and Raitho, and Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai (Photograph: Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine)

In a telephone interview from Cairo at the weekend with the National Herald in Boston, Archbishop Damianos of Sinai, Pharan, and Raitho, and Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, spoke about the recent developments at the monastery.

Archbishop Damianos said: ‘For over ten years now, we have been in and out of court, because our right of ownership over this barren land – which we always considered ours, handed down to us by sanctified individuals – is being denied … These are holy places visited by people from around the world, from which the Egyptian government benefits; yet they do not wish to recognise them as our property.’

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has called on the Egyptian government and President Sisi to maintain the status quo of Saint Catherine’s Monastery. In a statement last Friday, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said it was ‘disappointed and saddened’ by the ruling and called on the Egyptian government to respect long-standing traditions agreements on Saint Catherine’s Monastery ‘where God once spoke to humankind’.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has said it is ‘deeply troubled’ and reasserted its jurisdiction over and protection of the monastery.

Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens said the court ruling is ‘scandalous’ and a ‘violent infringement of human and religious rights’ by the Egyptian judicial authorities. He has warned that the monastery’s property would now be ‘seized and confiscated’ despite ‘recent pledges to the contrary’ by Sisi to Mitsotakis. He added: ‘The property of the monastery is being seized and confiscated, and this spiritual lighthouse of Orthodoxy and Hellenism is now facing a question of real survival.’

A copy of the earliest icon from Mount Sinai in the chapel of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Despite the rapid growth of tourism in Egypt and the development of resorts such as Sharm el-Sheikh, the Sinai Peninsula has long been a remote region. It takes six or seven hours to travel from Cairo to Saint Catherine’s at the foot of Mount Sinai, and for generations the Sinai Desert remained the wilderness it must have been when the Children of Israel trekked through here for 40 years after they fled from slavery in Egypt and crossed the Red Sea.

Saint Catherine’s Monastery, dating to the fourth century, is the principal tourist attraction in the desert. As a spiritual centre, Saint Catherine’s is a pivotal place in the development of Orthodox spirituality:

• the first Christian icons may have been produced in the fourth century, and the earliest surviving icons, found in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, date from the sixth or seventh century;

• Saint John Klimakos, a monk of Mount Sinai who died in the year 606 CE, has been strongly influential on theology, spirituality and iconography through The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a spiritual classic in which he recommends the use of the Jesus Prayer.

• the tradition of iconography from Mount Sinai and Crete strongly influenced Western art after Michael Damaskinos and his pupil El Greco moved from Crete to Italy in the 16th century.

‘We have three types of tourists visiting us,’ the monastery’s abbot, Archbishop Damianos once told the Greek journal Odyssey. ‘There are the devout, there are art lovers who came to see our treasures, and then there are the worst kind – those who come because they consider a daytrip to Saint Catherine’s to be the cultural part of their beach holiday.’

For many visitors, the monastery is the starting point for a daunting three-hour climb to the 600-metre summit of Mount Sinai. The daily trek, led by Bedouin camel drivers, sets off before 3 a.m. so climbers on the rough, steep path are saved from the burning sun. Later in the day – until this week’s closure – the monastery has been open to tourists for only 2½ hours, from 9:30 to noon, and it has remained closed on Fridays, Sundays and all Greek Orthodox holidays.

An old print of Saint Catherine’s Monastery I once had in the Rectory in Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In this remote corner of the Christendom, the monks of Saint Catherine’s continue to value the desert silence but they have also acquired some of the benefits of 21st-century technology.

The most visible legacy of the Desert Fathers at Saint Catherine’s is a unique library and collection of icons, textiles and religious artefacts. The Icon Gallery includes rare sixth-century icons that survived the ravages of the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries. The library includes 3,500 bound manuscripts, 2,000 scrolls and fragments, and more than 5,000 early printed books, of an age and linguistic diversity matched only by the Vatican Library.

In the monastery library, Father Justin told me how the most valued treasure was once the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the fourth century. It was ‘borrowed’ in 1865 by a visiting German scholar, Constantin Tischendorf, who promptly presented it to the Tsar; Stalin sold it for £100,00 to Britain in 1933, and the codex now rests in the British Museum. Half a century ago, 15 missing folios were found in the monastery’s north wall in 1975, leaving the monks with part of the oldest existing copy of the New Testament.

One of the copies of the ‘achitames’ with the imprint of Muhammad’s hand, guaranteeing the protection of Saint Catherine’s Monastery under Islamic rule

Father Justin also showed me one of the copies in the library of the achitames or document with the imprint of Muhammad’s hand, guaranteeing the protection of Saint Catherine’s Monastery under Islamic rule. In the year 635 CE, the monks of Mount Sinai sent a delegation asking for Muhammad’s patronage and protection. The request was granted and was honoured when the Muslims conquered the Sinai in the year 641 CE.

Later, in 1009, the mad Caliph al-Hakim built a mosque within the monastery walls, with an unusual qibla pointing towards Jerusalem rather than Mecca as the direction for prayer. The monks continue to keep open the only mosque to survive within the walls of a monastery, and Father Justin described it as one of the ‘many examples of tolerance, respect and affection’ between Christians and Muslims in Egypt.

The monks admit they would find it difficult to survive without the support and kindness of their local Muslim neighbours. The local Bedouin, from the tiny Jabiliyya tribe, claim descent from 200 Greek soldiers brought by the Emperor Justinian from Alexandria and Thrace to fortify and guard the monastery in the sixth century.

Although they are Muslims, Father Justin told me how they join in many of the monastery festivals and look to the abbot, who is also Archbishop of Sinai, as their community leader, protector, judge, and even as their ‘grandfather’.

He spoke of the support of international donors, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Courtauld Institute in London, have helped the monks to develop a programme of refurbishment and conservation in the library.

Father Justin pointed out that without this outside help, the resources of the monastery would have been overwhelmed by the task of safeguarding its treasures. The droves of tourists may disturb the morning peace of one of the most isolated monasteries in the world, but the west’s generosity has brought benefits too.

The Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai is now the Museum of Christian Art in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of Sinai is the smallest self-governing Christian denomination in Egypt – its few members include Archbishop Damianos, who is also the Abbot of Mount Sinai, and the 20-25 monks who come mainly from Mount Athos and other parts of Greece. In addition, there are some small dependencies nearby, and four dependencies of Mount Sinai in Greece.

Archbishop Damianos has lived at the monastery since the age of 27, and he was 91 last weekend, just days after the court ruling.

When I was in Crete for Easter in April, I visited two churches in Iraklion that have been traditional dependences of Mount Sinai: Saint Catherine’s Church, now the Museum of Christian Art; and the mediaeval Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites. The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, where I have studied in Cambridge, is also under the patronage of Saint Catherine.

An icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was one of five or six icons I had on the wall above my desk when I was on the staff of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute in Dublin.

Archbishop Damianos, who is in Cairo, plans to return to Athens within the coming days, while an official Greek delegation is expected in to visit Egypt this week. The monks plan to launch a global awareness campaign, appealing to Christian churches and other religious communities.

Meanwhile, it is important that they receive messages of support from religious leaders around the world, and that Egyptian embassies are made aware of the concerns and feelings of people everywhere.

The Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites in Iraklion and a unique collection of icons in Crete

The Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites in the old city in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

On a sunny afternoon, as I was making my way from the Cathedral of Saint Minas in the heart of Iraklion to the Martinengo Bastion above the city to see the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis, I stopped to visit the mediaeval Byzantine Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites in the maze of streets in the old city.

This church with an unusual name is a monastic foundation linked to Saint Catharine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery, and it holds one of the most important collections of icons in Crete today, dating from the 16th to the 18th century.

The church is also intimately linked to events at the end of the 19th century that led to the end of Ottoman rule and the incorporation of Crete into modern Greece.

The main (south) aisle in the church … the first church on the site dated back to the second Byzantine period (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

I had last visited this church in September 2013. The church, on Taxiarchou Markopoulou street, is near the bustling city centre of Iraklion and Saint Minas Cathedral. But it is a quiet residential area, with traditional white-washed houses, cobbled streets, and cosy tavernas and cafés.

The two-aisled church is set in a shaded courtyard about 500 metres south of the cathedral of Saint Minas. The present building dates back to just after the earthquake of 1508.

The earliest references in the lists of churches in Candia say the first church on the site dated back to the second Byzantine period (961 to1204 CE), a significant period of cultural and economic revival for the island after its reconquest from Arab rule. Saint Matthew’s was regarded as ‘Great and Unique’ and was inextricably connected with life in the city.

The north aisle in the church … the church became a dependency of the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1669 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Byzantine church of Saint Matthew Sinaitón or Saint Matthew of the Sinaites (Ναός Αγίου Ματθαίου Σιναϊτών) was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1508. The new church of Agios Matthaios (Saint Matthew) was probably built, as a family chapel in the early 17th century on the site of the older Byzantine church that had been destroyed in the earthquake. The founding inscription says it was built in 1600.

After the Ottomans captured Crete and Iraklion in 1669, the Church of Saint Catherine was turned into a mosque. Through the intervention of the Sultan’s interpreter, Nikosios Panagiotakis, Saint Matthew’s Church was then given by way of compensation as a metochion or small monastic establishment to the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai and its monks.

The seat of the Archbishop of Crete, and the icons, paintings and pulpits that had once adorned Saint Catherine were transferred to the church, and it has been known ever since as Saint Matthew of the Sinaites.

The carved pulpit in the south aisle is highly decorated with icons (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

However, it cannot be said with certainty whether the school of iconography at Saint Catherine’s operated on the church grounds during this period, although it was located there later, and was moved to the small Church of Agios Minas around 1750. The school continued to function through the work of Georgios Kastrophylakas and loannis Kastrophylakas, father and son, and Ioannis Kornaros, who had attended the school.

The church is known for its striking architecture and serene ambiance. It has an elegant façade, and the interior is equally captivating, with its frescoes and icons. This is a two-aisled, vaulted church with a transverse narthex. The complex also includes two neoclassical buildings and a newer building.

A relief marble slab above the north entrance of the church depicts Saint Matthew the Apostle. The church was expanded at the end of the 17th century, and the south aisle was added and dedicated to Saint Paraskevi. The flat-roofed narthex was rebuilt in the 18th century, and a chapel was added at the north-east end and dedicated to Saint Charalambos.

The church holds a rare collection of icons with important works of the Cretan School of Iconography (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today the church holds a rare collection of icons with important works of the Cretan School of Iconography in the Venetian Era.

The icons include the Crucifixion by Georgios Kastrophylakas (1752); Saint Catherine and Saint Symeon the God-Receiver by Jeremiah Palladas; the Crucifixion (1772) and Saint Titus and Scenes of the Lives of the 10 Martyrs of Crete by Ioannis Kornaros (1773); the Crucifixion, attributed to Palaiokappa; and two unsigned icons by Michael Damaskinos, Saint Symeon Theodochos and Saint John the Baptist (16th century).

Other notable icons in the church include: Saint Phanourios by John, priest of Kolyva (1688); Saint Paraskevi (17th century); the Prophet Elias with scenes of his life, by Georgios Kydoniates (1752); the Lament (1753); Saint Charalampos and the martyrdom of the saint, by Ioannis Kornaros, (1773); and the Virgin Mary or Panaghia by Victor (1780).

The iconostasis in the main south aisle of the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

For many decades, Saint Matthew and Saint Minas long remained the two principal Orthodox churches in Iraklion, and many influential members of the Christian community in the city were buried in the churchyard.

Many of the people slaughtered by the Turks in the massacre in Iraklion on 25 August 1898 are also buried in the churchyard. They include Lysimachos Kalokairinos (1840-1898), who had been the British Vice Consul in Iraklion from 1859 and a British subject since 1871.

Kalokairinos was killed when his home was burnt down during the violence in 1898, and most of his archaeological collection and that of his brother, Minos Kalokairinos (1843-1907), dragoman at the consulate, were destroyed. Minos Kalokairinos was an amateur archaeologist known for the first excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos, and his excavations were continued later by Arthur Evans.

Many of the people slaughtered in the massacre in Iraklion on 25 August 1898 are buried in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

During the violence, known the ‘Candia Massacre’, it is estimated 500-800 Christians were massacred in Iraklion, 14 British military personnel were murdered, and Lysimachos Kalokairinos and his family were burnt alive in their home. A significant part of Candia was burned down and the massacre, which continued for four hours, ended only after British warships began bombarding the city.

The massacre on 6 September 1898 (Old Style 25 August) accelerated the end of Ottoman rule: the last Ottoman soldier left Crete two months later, on 28 November 1898, ending the 253-year Ottoman rule on the island. Crete became an autonomous state in 1899 and was incorporated into the modern Greek state in 1913.

The Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites remains a ‘Great and Unique’ church. It is an important part of the spiritual heritage of Crete and it is cherished as a landmark that has played a key role in the religious, political and cultural history of Iraklion.

The Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites is a ‘Great and Unique’ church in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Cathedral of Saint Minas in Iraklion, the city’s patron and protector, is one of the largest in Greece

Saint Minas Cathedral in Iraklion is one of the largest and most impressive churches in Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I spent most of the day in Iraklion yesterday (18 April 2025), where I enjoyed a long and lingering lunch with an old friend I have known for almost 20 years.

I had taken a morning bus from Rethymnon, where I am staying, and arrived in time to visit some churches in Iraklion, including Saint Minas Cathedral, one of the largest and most impressive churches in Greece, the smaller original Church of Saint Minas beneath it, the Church of Saint Titus, the Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites, and the ruined Dominican Church of Saint Peter near the harbour and which is undergoing restoration.

In the early afternoon I also climbed the old Venetian wall that surround the old town and harbour and visited once again the grave and Nikos Kazantzakis, who is the nearest Crete has to having its own national writer.

Saint Minas Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Crete and is the largest church in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Iraklion is the capital of Crete, and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Agios Minas (῾Ιερός Μητροπολιτικός Ναός ῾Αγίου Μηνᾶ) is the seat of the Archbishop of Crete. It is the largest church in Crete and is dedicated to Saint Minas the Martyr and Wonderworker (285-309 CE), the patron saint and protector of Iraklion.

The cathedral was built from 1862 to 1895, and took over three decades to complete because the Cretan Revolution of 1866-1869 interrupted the progress of building work. It was built to replace the smaller and older church of Agios Minas, which still stands beside the cathedral, sharing the small open space with the much older 16th century Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai.

The small church of Saint Minas, still known to people in Iraklion as ‘little Agios Minas’, dates back to the Venetian period. It was rebuilt 280 years ago in 1735 at the expense of the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, and became the seat and cathedral of the Bishop and the Diocese of Crete – the first since the Turkish conquest of the island in 1669.

The earlier Church of Saint Minas (left) and the 19th century cathedral stand beside each other in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The smaller two-aisled church has changed little since it was rebuilt and many of the icons and images that have survived inside date from the 18th century and have great artistic value. The north aisle is dedicated to Panagia Pantanassa (Ypapanti) and the south aisle to Agios Minas. The iconostasis, especially that of the Ypapanti aisle, is an excellent example of wood carving.

Saint Minas became the patron saint and protector of Iraklion during the Turkish occupation of Crete. According to a local legend, he miraculously converted the Turkish troop commander from being a sworn enemy to acting as a protector of the Christians.

According to local tradition, Saint Minas protected the church and the city from destruction. It is said that almost 200 years ago, when Christians in Iraklion were packed into the small Church of Saint Minas for the Easter liturgy in 1826, they were attacked by an Ottoman force preparing to massacre them.

Suddenly before them, the Ottomans saw a young, brave horseman waving a sword. They were scared and backed away. The Christians believed that the horseman was Saint Minas who was there to protect them and their city.

The writer Nikos Kazantzakis refers to Saint Minas in his book Captain Michalis, published in the UK as Freedom and Death: ‘On midnight, when the town is in deep sleep, St Minas descends from his icon and sets off for the quays, crossing through the neighbourhoods of the Greeks; when he finds a door open, he locks it; when he finds a Christian ill and sees light in his window, he stands, pleading to God to heal him.’

Inside the smaller 18th century Church of Saint Minas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When the small 18th century church could no longer accommodate the needs of Christians in Iraklion, demand grew for building a new cathedral. The site bought for a new church had once been the garden of a Turk.

Athanasios Moussis from Epirus, the architect of the new cathedral, was also the architect of the Church of Saint Titos Church in Iraklion. The foundation stone was laid on 25 March 1862, but the outbreak of the Cretan revolution in 1866 put a stop to building work, which did not resume until 1883.

Tradition says that at one point when the cathedral was being built, there was no money to pay the workers. Students and the people of Iraklion formed a human chain from the port to the church to deliver the building materials, and the cathedral was completed 130 years ago, on 18 April 1895.

Inside The Cathedral of Saint Minas in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The cathedral is a cruciform-shaped church with a central dome that stands on high spandrels. The external maximum dimensions are 43.2 metres in length and 29.5 metres in width and it has a surface area of 1,350 sq m. There are two bell towers, one in the north-east corner and the other in the south-east corner.

Inside, the cathedral is in the shape of a three-aisle basilica. The south transept is dedicated to Saint Titos and the north transept in dedicated to the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete.

Iraklion was severely damaged during the Battle of Crete in 1941 in World War II, part of the cathedral was damaged by bombs in May 1941. Two bombs fell without exploding and one of them remains on display at the north side of the cathedral.

Christ the Pantocrator in the cathedral dome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When Nikos Kazantzakis died in Freiburg in Germany 1957, he was denied church ceremonies in Athens. However, Aristotle Onassis had his body was flown back to Crete, where he lay in state in Agios Minas Cathedral in Iraklion.

The Archbishop of Athens had demanded his excommunication, but the Patriarch of Constantinople insisted that the Church of Crete was independent and part of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

His funeral took place on 5 November 1957, and a priest officiated at his burial on the Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian walls, overlooking the city and Agios Minas Cathedral – giving lie to the popular claim that Kazantzakis had died an excommunicate and was buried without the rites of the Church.

The wood-carved icon screen in the cathedral has been replaced with one made of marble from Tinos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The original wood-carved iconostasis or icon screen in the cathedral has been replaced with one made of marble from Tinos, and the same too with the bishop’s throne, both made by Anastasios Orlandos. The frescoes and wall paintings are the work of Stelios Kartakis, who followed faithfully the principles of Byzantine icon painting, and they were completed in 1978.

The hundredth anniversary of the opening of the cathedral was celebrated with great solemnity 30 years ago (1995).

The Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai next to the cathedral and in the same square as the older Church of Saint Minas is now a museum of Christian art.

Saint Minas continues to be revered as the patron and protector of Iraklion, and he is celebrated with a public holiday in the city on 11 November each year.

An icon of Saint Minas, the patron and protector of Iraklion, at the entrance to the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A day to learn about the story of Westminster College, the college chapel, and the work of the Woolf Institute

Celebrations and pre-Christmas drinks with the IOCS at Westminster College, Cambridge, last weekend (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It was a true joy and pleasure to be back in Cambridge last weekend and to take part in the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The celebrations provided a delightful opportunity for about 70 people to celebrate and reflect on the work of IOCS over the past quarter of a century in promoting a ‘Generous Orthodoxy’.

I had been a student on the summer courses IOCS offered at Sidney Sussex College over many years (2008-2016), and this was an opportunity to renew old friendships and to make new friends.

It was my third time back in Cambridge this year. But Saturday – as well as being a day of celebrations and reflections – was also a day for prayer and worship, and it was my first time to visit Westminster College and its chapel, to visit the Woolf Institute and to learn about its work.

Westminster College on Madingley Road, Cambridge, is the theological college of the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Westminster College on Madingley Road, Cambridge, is the theological college of the United Reformed Church, training people for ordained ministry and also providing wider theological training in the URC.

The college was founded in London in 1844, after the synod of the newly-formed Presbyterian Church in England in 1842 decided to set up ‘as speedily as possible’ a college that would provide men with ‘a literary, philosophical and theological education, to qualify them for the office of Holy Ministry in the Presbyterian Church.’

The new English Presbyterian College was formed at Exeter Hall on the Strand in 1844. The Revd Dr Peter Lorimer (1812-1879) was appointed the first principal in 1845 and was also Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Criticism, teaching Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldee, as well as exegetical theology.

The college then had three successive homes in Bloomsbury: 51 Great Ormond Street, (1852-1858), 29 Queen Square (1858-1864) and Queen Square House, Queen Square (1864-1899). It was involved in the proposals in 1890 for a new federal University of Westminster, involving most of London’s higher-education institutions. When these proposals failed, the college moved to Cambridge in 1899 as Westminster College.

The portraits of Agnes Smith Lewis (left) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson in the Dining Hall in Westminster College (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The site near the centre of Cambridge was bought from Saint John’s College, and was the gift of Scottish twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis (1843-1920) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843-1926), both noted biblical scholars, linguists and orientalists. They are known for their study of one of the earliest versions of the earliest Gospel manuscripts, the Syriac Sinaiticus or Codex Sinaiticus Syriacus, discovered in Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai.

The contributions of these sisters to Biblical studies also include the publication of the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a sixth-century palimpsest that contains portions of the Old Testament and New Testament, and palimpsest manuscripts in Aramaic of the Forty Martyrs of the Sinai Desert and the Story of Eulogios, the Stone Cutter. They edited many other key manuscripts in Syriac and Arabic.

They found many of the manuscripts in the antiquities market in Cairo and acquired them for the library in Westminster College. While Lewis and Gibson were travelling in the Middle East in 1897, they also found and bought some fragments of parchment of the Cairo Genizah. With the support of Solomon Schechter, they made several more trips to the Middle East, locating the majority of the Genizah at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. Schechter identified the fragments as part of the Hebrew Wisdom of Sirach.

The story of these women is told by Janet Soskice, Professor Emerita of Philosophical Theology at Cambridge, in her book Sisters of Sinai (2009), and their portraits hang above the High Table in the Dining Hall in Westminster College.

Inside the college chapel in Westminster College, facing the liturgical east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Following an appeal for funds, particularly among Presbyterians in England, Westminster College commissioned a new building designed in the Arts and Crafts style by Henry Thomas Hare (1860-1921), the architect who also designed Oxford Town Hall (1897), and the college was built in 1897-1899.

The college began to amalgamate with Cheshunt College, Cambridge, in 1967, in advance of the union of the Congregational Church in England and the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church in 1972.

Cheshunt College, the former theological college of the Congregationalists, was founded in 1768 by Selina Countess of Huntingdon after six Anglican students were expelled from St Edmund Hall, Oxford because of their alleged Methodist leanings. It moved to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in 1792 and to Cambridge in 1906.

Inside the college chapel in Westminster College, facing the liturgical west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The college chapel was the gift of Sir William Noble (1863-1935), later Lord Kirkley, and his wife Margaret (née Dixon) to commemorate their son William Black Noble, who died in 1915 during World War I, and was dedicated in 1921. Noble was a shipowner and a partner in Cairns, Noble & Co, who ran the Cairn Line.

The chapel looks more like a traditional Cambridge college chapel than a Presbyterian meeting house. It includes an antechapel with a gallery, a screen with gates leading into the choir, and a raised apse. The communion table is designed for standing rather than sitting, although it is set forward from the wall.

Three of the 11 stained-glass windows in the college chapel by the Scottish artist Douglas Strachan (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The 11 stained-glass windows in the chapel are by the Scottish artist Douglas Strachan (1875-1950). Beginning at the far right as one enters is a series of windows, four from the Old Testament on the right and five from the New Testament on the left. Linking all the windows is the text of the canticle Benedicite opera omnia in the top panels: ‘O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord.’

The sequence begins with Ezekiel’s vision of God on one side of the organ and then Noah sacrificing at an altar after the Flood on the other. In the antechapel is a scene of the Ark of the Covenant in procession and another of Elijah with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

The Old and New Testaments are linked by figures over the gallery, Law and Love, before coming to a Nativity scene, the Baptism of Christ, the Temptations, Christ stilling the storm and, finally, Saint John’s vision of the New Jerusalem.

Other symbolism and figures in the chapel includes the signs of the Zodiac, a Bambi-like deer, a robin in the snow and Sir Isaac Newton.

The decoration of the apse was completed in 1929 by W Jowsey, and there is some fine needlework in the hassocks.

An icon of the Samaritan Woman at the Well … a gift from the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

There are two small icons on the screen, a reminder of the role of the college in facilitating ecumenical dialogue involving the Orthodox Church.

An icon of the Samaritan Woman at the Well was a gift from the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. A small version of Andrei Rublev’s ‘Hospitality of Abraham’ was presented by Bishop Konstantin Tikhvinsky (Goryanov) of Tikhvin, Rector of St Petersburg Theological Academy and Seminary, when he visited Westminster College in 1999.

The war memorial plaques include one with the names of both English and German students who died in World War II.

The Dining Hall in Westminster College … the portraits of Lewis and Gibson hang above the high table (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

To this day, the portraits of Lewis and Gibson hang above the high table in the Dining Hall in Westminster College. But the college sold many of the manuscripts found by Lewis and Gibson to the Green Collection in 2010 and they have since been put on show in the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.

Three years later, the Cairo Genizah collection was sold by Westminster College for £1.2 million in 2013. The Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford and Cambridge University Library got together to buy the collection.

Westminster College used the money to help finance a refurbishment of the college in 2013-2014.

Preparing for a celebration of the Holy Communion in the chapel in Westminster College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Westminster College is not part of the University of Cambridge officially, but with other courses and institutes, including the IOCS and the Woolf Institute, it forms the Cambridge Theological Federation, which is affiliated with the university. Most students at Westminster College work for either a BA or MA degree from Anglia Ruskin University or a BTh or BA degree from Cambridge University.

The 11 member and associate member houses of the Cambridge Theological Federation are: the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide; the Eastern Region Ministry Course (Anglican); the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion; the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Orthodox); the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology (Roman Catholic); Ridley Hall (Anglican); Wesley House (Methodist); Westcott House (Anglican); Westfield House (Lutheran); Westminster College (Reformed); and the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths.

Westminster College has been home to both the Woolf Institute and the Faraday Institute since 2017. The Margaret Beaufort Institute has a home at the Woolf Institute since moving in October from Lady Margaret House in Grange Road, the convent of the Canonesses of Saint Augustine.

The Woolf Institute in the grounds of Westminster College is also part of the Cambridge Theological Federation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The Woolf Institute, where most of our discussions took place on Saturday afternoon, was founded in 1998 by Edward Kessler and Martin Forward to ‘provide an academic framework and space in which people could tackle issues of religious difference constructively.’ It is dedicated to the study of interfaith relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims and aims to foster greater understanding and tolerance.

The institute began as the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, and expanded over time to include the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations and the Centre for Policy and Public Education. The three centres were combined in 2010 and renamed as the Woolf Institute in honour of Lord (Harry) Woolf, a patron of the institute and former Lord Chief Justice.

The Woolf Institute also contributes to the MPhil in Middle East Studies at the University of Cambridge, and offers a doctorate in collaboration with the Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Edward Kessler, the founder president of the Woolf Institute, is a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and chairs the Commission on the Integration of Refugees. He is a Fellow of Saint Edmund’s College, Cambridge, and is also a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The Woolf Institute, the venue the IOCS seminars on Saturday, was founded in 1998 by Edward Kessler and Martin Forward (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)