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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
• 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.
