Praying the prayers for peace written by Eric Milner-White as I listen to the sounds of war

Eric Milner-White (1884-1963) … his prayers are so relevant today

Patrick Comerford

For many years, I maintained a website and Facebook page for a project I had called the Dead Anglican Theologians Society. The project has been moribund for the past five years, but should I ever have thoughts about breathing new life into it, some of the 20th century theologians I ought to include are Alfred Hope Patten (1885-1958), Bishop Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953) and Eric Milner-White (1884-1963), three key Anglican theologians in the first half of the 20th century.

I was reminded of their innovative contributions to Anglican theology when I was in Walsingham earlier this month as one of the speakers at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage (10-13 March 2026).

Among the other speakers that week was the Methodist minister and theologian, Canon Norman Wallwork of Exeter, who is an ecumenical canon of Wells Cathedral as Prebendary of Holcombe, and who spoke in the Catholic Church of the Anunciation in Walsingham on ‘The Marian Prayers of Eric Milner-Scott’.

The Very Revd Eric Milner Milner-White (1884-1963) was a priest, liturgist, academic and decorated military chaplain. He was a founder of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd, an Anglican dispersed community, and was its superior from 1923 to 1938, and he was the Dean of York from 1941 to 1963.

He is best-known for developing the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at the end of World War I when he was the Dean of King’s College, Cambridge.

Eric Milner-White was the Dean of King’s College Chapel from 1918 to 1941 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Eric Milner-White was born in Southampton on 23 April 1884, the son of Sir Henry Milner-White, a barrister and company chairman, and Kathleen Lucy (née Meeres). He was educated at Harrow and King’s College, Cambridge, where he had a scholarship to read history. He graduated in 1906 with a double-first and received the Lightfoot Scholarship.

After theological training at Cuddesdon College, Milner-White was ordained deacon in 1908 and priest in 1909 in Southwark Cathedral). His curacies were at Saint Paul’s, Newington (1908-1909), and Saint Mary Magdalen, Woolwich (1909-1912), before he returned to King’s College as chaplain in 1912, when he was also appointed a lecturer in history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

He volunteered as an army chaplain at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, and was on the Western Front and in Italy. He was Mentioned in Despatches on 24 December 1917 and decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1918.

He resigned his commission on 5 January 1918 and returned to Cambridge as the Dean and a Fellow of King’s College. He was re-appointed as an honorary chaplain to the armed forces in 1921. He was a founder of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd and also the order’s superior from 1923 to 1938.

During his time at King’s College, Milner-White introduced the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols. It was first broadcast in 1928 and has now become a major part of the BBC’s Christmas schedule.

His experience as an army chaplain led him to believe that more imaginative worship was needed by the Church of England, and the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s was held on Christmas Eve 1918. The order of service was adapted from the order created by Edward Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, for Truro Cathedral on Christmas Eve 1880.

That first service at King’s largely followed Benson’s original plan, including the Benedictions before each reading, several of which were later amalgamated by Milner-White into his Bidding Prayer.

The service was first broadcast from King’s by the BBC in 1928 and, except for 1930, has been broadcast every year since. Even throughout World War II, despite the stained glass having been removed from the Chapel at King’s and the lack of heating, the broadcasts continued. Since World War II, it has been estimated that each year millions of listeners worldwide listen to the service live on the BBC.

The bidding prayer, adapted by Eric Milner-White and now in use in King’s Chapel, prays:

‘Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmas Eve our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels; in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.

‘Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child; and let us make this Chapel, dedicated to Mary, his most blessèd Mother, glad with our carols of praise:

‘But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for unity and brotherhood within the Church he came to build, and especially in the dominions of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, within this University and City of Cambridge, and in the two royal and religious Foundations of King Henry VI here and at Eton:

‘And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; all who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

‘Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.

‘These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven, in the words which Christ himself hath taught us:

‘Our Father …’

Milner-White was instrumental in inspiring the composer Herbert Howells to write his Collegium Regale service settings when he challenged Howells to write music for King’s College in 1941. Howells remarked that his composition was ‘the only Te Deum to be born of a decanal bet’. The settings have since become a well-known part of Anglican repertoire.

Collegium Regale: https://www.patrickcomerford.com/2014/12/hymns-for-advent-6-spotless-rose-by.html

York Minster was the Dean of York Minster from 1941 until he died in 1963 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Milner-White remained at King’s until 1941, when he was appointed Dean of York by Archbishop William Temple. During his time as dean, he directed the replacement of many of York Minster’s windows and undertook a great deal of writing on liturgy and he was a member of the literary panel that produced the New English Bible in 1948-1962.

Milner-White’s honours included CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1952), the Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity (1952), and an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of Leeds (1962).

Milner-White died of cancer in the deanery of York Minster on 15 June 1963.

Milner-White realised during World War I that the ministry of the Church of England, particularly the services for the burial of the dead, did not meet the needs of the troops in the trenches. He made those views clear in an essay ‘Worship and services’ in The Church in the Furnace in 1918.

He continued to press for prayers additional to those in the Book of Common Prayer to meet the needs of modern congregations. Of his own prayer publications, probably the best known is Daily Prayer (1941), which he compiled with Canon George Wallace Briggs (1875-1959), and which includes a selection of prayers for public, private and school worship.

His other works include Occasional Prayer (1928), Memorials upon Several Occasions (1933), revised as After the Third Collect (1953), A Cambridge Bede Book (1936), and A Procession of Passion Prayers (1950), which became an important resource for Holy Week.

Towards the end of his life, he published two further books of prayers: My God, My Glory (1954) and Let Grace Reign (1960), dedicated to the Vicars Choral of York Minster ‘with my deep love and gratitude’.

During that week in Walsingham earlier this month, the US war against Iran was gathering pace, and the overpowering, intrusive and invasive noise of the overflights were a constant, persistent and pernicious reminder throughout each and every day of the presence of the US air force at the RAF bases nearby in Feltwell, Lakenheath and Mildenhall.

With that constant reminder of war and the threat of a conflagration that could yet engulf the world, it was good that morning to hear Norman Wallwork remind us of prayers for peace and in times of war written by Eric Milner-White, a much decorated and valiant army chaplain who knew the horrors of war at first-hand:

For the Peace of the World:

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, and no strength known but the strength of love: we pray you so mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under one banner, of the Prince of Peace; as children of one God and Father of all; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

(Occasional Prayers, 1928)

For the Peace of the World:

O God, as you would fold both heaven and earth in a single peace: Let the design of your great love descend upon the waste of our anger and sorrow; and give peace to your Church, peace among the nations, peace in our dwellings, and peace in our hearts; through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

(< i>Memorials upon Several Occasions, 1933)

And there was a prayer, based on Psalm 141: 3, that reminded me of the way Donald Trump is, to say the least, economical with the truth:

Set a guard, Lord, upon our tongues:
that we never speak the cruel word which is not true;
or being true, is not the whole truth;
or being wholly true, is merciless;
for the love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Daily Prayer, 1941)

A year before his death, he wrote a prayer based on words by the poet John Donne (1572-1631) in a sermon preached at Whitehall on 29 February 1627. These words have also been provided with choral settings by many composers, including Peter R Hallock and William Harris:

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,
but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends or beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of your glory and dominion,
world without end.

King’s College Chapel is known for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols revived by Eric Milner-White (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Visiting three more churches in York with varied history and uses, all in a weekend visit

Saint Cuthbert’s Church, now known as the Well Prayer House, is on the edge of Peasholme Green, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my brief visit to York earlier this month, I attended the Sung Parish Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church, I was offered what felt like a personalised guided tour of the Church of the English Martyrs by the parish priest, Canon Michael Loughlin, viewed the peace gardens at Saint Martin-le-Grand, and dropped in, of course, to York Minster, albeit for only for a few moments.

I also visited some significant Quaker buildings in York, including Bootham School, the Mount School, and the former home of the Rowntree family.

During that weekend, I also stopped to look at three other churches, one a former mediaeval parish church that has been transformed into a prayer centre, and two former Methodist churches – one Wesleyan Methodist and the other once a Primitive Methodist church – although I did not manage to see inside any one of the three.

Saint Cuthbert’s Church, Peasholme Green, was a parish church in York until the 1970s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Cuthbert’s Church, now known as the Well Prayer House, is a Grade I listed church on the edge of Peasholme Green, a stone’s throw away from York Minster and the busy life of Parliament Street.

It is difficult to appreciate the full extent and scope of Saint Cuthbert’s Church, wedged between a modern office development on one side and a restaurant and museums on the other. Although the east wall dates from the 11th century and the corner buttress was built in the 14th century, most of the church walls date from the 15th century, and the porch and vestry date from the mid-19th century. The square windows in the south wall are typical of the late perpendicular style, and have simple yet beautiful tracery.

Saint Cuthbert’s has a continuous two-bay chancel and a three-bay nave with a south porch, a two-stage west tower, a north-west vestry, and a charnel vault that was converted into a crypt.

Towards the east end, a priest’s door has two cinquefoil panels, a four-centred head with oak and vine carved spandrels carved in a chamfered surround and a coved hoodmould.

Other surviving features also include decayed gargoyles, an embattled parapet, the former charnel vault, and a coffin lid with an incised cross shaft set in tower west wall of the tower.

Parts of Saint Cuthbert’s Church date from the 11th to the 15th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Although I did not manage to see inside the church, I understand the fittings include a hexagonal pulpit with arcaded panels carved with foliage, and altar or Communion table with column legs and fluted rail, boards with the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and Creed in round-headed moulded surrounds, and a Lord Mayors’ board with a Queen Anne cypher, as well as two faded painted boards said to represent Moses and Aaron, and three hatchments.

Saint Cuthbert’s Church is mentioned in the Domesday Book, when the advowson belonged to William de Percy. The patronage passed to Holy Trinity Priory in Micklegate in 1238.

The church was restored ca 1430 and largely rebuilt by William de Bowes MP, who was Lord Mayor of York in 1417 and 1428.

At the Dissolution of the monastic houses during the Tudor Reformation, the patronage was transferred to the Crown. The parish was united with the parishes of All Saints’, Peasholme Green, Saint Helen-on-the-Walls and Saint Mary in Layerthorpe in 1586.

The church was restored in 1859, when the stonework was repointed, the floor was levelled and new pews were introduced. It was restored again in 1911-1919.

Saint Cuthbert’s Church is open for prayer every Thursday from 9:15 am to 6 pm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Saint Cuthbert’s was a parish church until the 1970s, when it joined with Saint Michael le Belfrey Church. The building was converted into parish offices in 1980.

The church is now knwn as the Well Prayer House, and is open for prayer every Thursday from 9:15 am to 6 pm, with Morning Prayer at 9:30, Mid-day Prayer at 12:30, Sung Worship at 5 pm, and Evening Prayer at 5:30, with informal prayer time in between.

Prayer rooms have been fitted out along different themes, including prayer for the city, for answered prayers, a Bible reading room, Holy Communion, art, and lament, grief and disappointment, as well as two general prayer rooms.

The former Wesley Chapel on Priory Street was built in 1856 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The former Wesley Chapel on Priory Street, in the Bishophill area, is a Grade II* listed building. It was built in 1856, on the newly-developed Priory Street in an area that was once part of the grounds of the Holy Trinity Priory.

The chapel was designed by the Scottish architect James Simpson (1830-1894) of Leith. When it opened, the chapel could hold 1,500 people. It was extended the following year, with the addition of a school, a Sunday school, and a house for a preacher.

It is built of brick in a classical style, with a stone pediment, and stone around the windows and doors. The front is of five bays and two storeys. It has three main entrance doors and two arched windows on the ground floor, and three arched windows above. The left and right façades of seven bays were designed in a similar manner.

Inside, the foyer was fully panelled, with a glazed screen separating it from the auditorium. The screen incorporated a memorial panel to members of the congregation killed in World War I. Doors to the side of the screen led to staircases up to an oval gallery above the auditorium. There were stained glass in every window except one, much in an Art Nouveau style.

A lecture hall was added behind the building later in the 19th century. It has been ascribed to George Townsend Andrews (1804-1854), the architect who designed York Railway Station, although Andrews died two years the chapel was built. A new organ built by James Binns was installed in 1892, and the buildings were extended in 1907 and 1910. A new porch was added in 1910.

During World War II, the council took over the school as the Manor Secondary Modern School. That building is now the Priory Centre.

The former Wesley Chapel on Priory Street closed in 1982 and was sold to the Assemblies of God (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The chapel was originally part of the York Circuit of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1867, it became the head of the new York Wesley Circuit, covering the city west of the River Ouse.

The Wesleyan Methodists became part of the new Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 and the chapel headed the revised Wesley Circuit. The chapel closed in 1982, and the congregation transferred to the Central Methodist Church on Saint Saviourgate.

The building was bought by a congregation linked to the Assemblies of God, and it was renamed as the Assembly of God Church. It was renamed the Rock Church in 1993, and it was still part of the Assemblies of God. It had an average weekly attendance of 250 adults by 2006. It was renamed again in 2018 as QChurch.

The former Victoria Bar Primitive Methodist Chapel, on the corner of Victor Street and Newton Terrace (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Victoria Bar Primitive Methodist Chapel opened in 1880, when it replaced the Nunnery Lane Mission Room, a Primitive Methodist mission house and Sunday School that had been built on a site near Saint Thomas’ Hospital on Nunnery Lane in 1865.

The chapel was built on the corner of Victor Street and Newton Terrace, at the junction with Lower Priory Street and inside the recently made Victoria Bar.

The opening was made in the York City wall in 1836 to make an easier way out for the residents of Victoria Bar. The York Circuit of the Primitive Methodists bought the site inside Victoria Bar in 1879.

The new chapel was designed by the architect William Peachey (1826-1912) of Darlington. Peachey is known mainly as a railway architect, but his works in York also included the Baptist Church on Priory Street.

The opening at Victoria Bar was made in the York City wall in 1836 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When it was built, the Primitive Methodist Chapel could hold 900 people and it included lecture rooms and classrooms, as well as a chapel room and minister’s vestry.

The chapel was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style with red and white brick. One end of the building was curved accommodating a curved gallery. The right-hand staircase on to the gallery was built into a tower.

Initially, Victoria Bar Chapel was part of the York Circuit of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. The circuit was divided into two in 1882 and Victoria Bar Chapel became head of the newly created Second York Circuit, known as the Victoria Bar Circuit.

Following the unification of the Primitive, Wesleyan and United Methodist churches in 1932, the chapel was closed in 1939 and it was sold in 1940.

The building became a furniture shop and then a soft toy factory. It was used again for worship for three years from 1992. It was converted into 14 one-bedroom flats and three two-bedroom flats in 1995.

The former chapel remains a striking feature to look at coming through Victoria Bar.

As for the former Saint Thomas’ Hospital on Nunnery Lane, I hope to look at it on another evening.

The west end of Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, facing onto Priory Street, beside the former Wesley Church … the priory once held the patronage of Saint Cuthbert’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of the English Martyrs, with its tall campanile, is York’s largest Roman Catholic church

The Church of the English Martyrs and its campanile on Dalton Terrace, built in 1931-1932 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During our recent visit to York, I was welcomed at the Church of the English Martyrs on Dalton Terrace by the Parish Priest, Canon Michael Loughlin. The Grade II listed Roman Catholic church is the largest Catholic church in York. It is in a conservation area and faces the Mount, the Quaker-run girls’ school.

The church is dedicated to the English Martyrs, a group of men and women, lay and religious, who were executed between 1535 and 1679 in the aftermath of the English Reformations. They range from Carthusian monks who in 1535 declined to accept Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy to seminary priests who were caught up in the alleged ‘Popish Plot’ against Charles II in 1679. Many were sentenced to death at show trials or with no trial at all.

The English martyrs include John Fisher and Thomas More, who were canonised in 1935, and 40 further martyrs who were canonised in 1970, including Edmund Campion, Margaret Clitherow of York, Margaret Ward, and Edmund Gennings from Lichfield. Following beatifications between 1886 and 1929, Pope Paul VI recognised the whole group of 40 as saints and they were canonised together in Rome on 25 October 1970.

A painting of Saint Margaret Clitherow of York in the Church of the English Martyrs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The parish boundaries include York railway station, Micklegate and the communities along the Tadcaster and Boroughbridge roads, the villages of Copmanthorpe, Upper Poppleton, Nether Poppleton and Bishopthorpe. The parish also includes the oldest convent in England, the Bar Convent founded in 1686.

The first congregation of the Church of the English Martyrs began meeting in a room in Saint Mary’s Court, off Blossom Street in 1881, the parish dates from 1882, and it took 50 years to build the church.

At first, Mass was celebrated in a room in Saint Mary’s Court, off Blossom Street. The congregation moved in 1889 to 17 Blossom Street, where it used the upper storey of a school building until the church and presbytery were built in Dalton Terrace in 1931-1932 and opened on 4 May 1932.

Inside the Church of the English Martyrs, York, facing the east end (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Church of the English Martyrs and the presbytery are listed at Grade II and are regarded as a well-preserved example of the ‘Early Christian’ style of architecture that was popular with inter-war Catholic churches. The architects were Williams and Jopling of Hull, who also built Saint Vincent de Paul Church, Hull, to a similar but smaller design.

The church is built of red brick laid in English garden wall bond, with brick and stone dressings and pantile roofs. It has of a nave with clerestory and chancel under a continuous roof, with plain brick apse projections to the chancel and flanking chapels.

A tall Italianate campanile at the south-west is linked to the church by the baptistry. The clerestory has seven round-headed windows on each side and – as with all the windows in the church and the presbytery – has attractive geometrical leaded lights. The church incorporates subtle Art Deco influences and most of the original fittings and furnishing remain in place.

The west front entrance to the Church of the English Martyrs, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The main entrance is at the west front in a stone surround carved with martyrs’ palms and similar images. Over the doorway are the stone carved coat-of-arms of Pope Pius XI, and above this a mosaic panel of the Virgin Mary inscribed Regina Martyrum (Queen of the Martyrs).

The entrance is framed by orders of arched brickwork and surmounted by a dentil cornice and gable. On either side are lower arched orders of brickwork with smaller, flat-headed windows.

There is a second entrance on the garden-facing side of the campanile, with an accessible wheelchair ramp.

Inside the Church of the English Martyrs, York, facing the west end and the choir gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Inside, the church has moulded arches without piers to the single bay chancel, painted red to evoke the blood of the martyrs. The plain half-domed apse is painted blue and side-lit with narrow windows. The seven bay arcades of the nave have round ashlar piers and cushion capitals, and moulded red brick arches with linked hoodmoulds.

Above this, the wall surface is plastered and painted. A sill band runs below the clerestory windows. There is a timber wagon roof on corbels in the nave and the chancel. At the west end a rebated round arch is spanned by a choir and organ gallery, the frontal inscribed Te Martyrum Candidatus Laudat Exercitus, a phrase from the canticle Te Deum, ‘The white-robed army of martyrs praises you’.

Below is a central pair of doors flanked by piers with capitals, enclosing the underside of the gallery to form a narthex and repository. The aisles have strutted lean-to roofs and windows with patterned leaded glass, the timber given a polychromatic paint scheme of Art Deco character.

A shrine or display area with relics and mementoes of the English martyrs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Lady Chapel at the east end of the north aisle has a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. Off this aisle are confessionals with oak doors and square glass panels. Some confessionals have been removed to create a shrine or display area for relics and mementoes of the English martyrs, including the jawbone of Nicholas Postgate and a small portion of Thomas More’s hat, which Canon Loughlin pointed out to me.

The south aisle has a Blessed Sacrament chapel at its east end, and at the west end a curtained off and disused baptistry area with a fine carved stone font and iron gates.

The pews are made of Austrian oak, with moulded tops on the bench ends.

The Stations of the Cross were carved by GW Milburn of York. They are octagonal, with low-relief carving reflecting the style of Eric Gill.

The relics in the church include a small portion of Thomas More’s hat (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The square campanile is about 80 ft high and is of four stages, with flat-headed windows on each side of the lower stages. It has rebated corners and corbelled turrets at the top of the third stage, and on these sit martyrs’ crosses made of creased tiles. The corniced octagonal bell stage has ribbed corners and four paired openings, each with a stone central shaft with a carved capital. Above this, a pyramidal pantile roof is topped with a cross.

An open loggia links the church and the presbytery at the ground floor. It is built with similar materials and detailing to the church. There are two parish halls: the small hall was built first, and the large hall was built later, in the 1950s.

The sanctuary was reordered by Weightman and Bullen in 1967. The high altar, altar rails and pulpit were removed. A new forward altar was introduced, with a new parquet floor in the chancel and seating around the apse, and a new terrazzo floor in the nave and aisles.

The sanctuary was reordered by Weightman and Bullen in 1967 and a new forward altar was introduced (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Pope John Paul II visited the parish on 31 May 1982 as part of his visit to Britain, which included a gathering at York race course. That year, the parish was transferred from the Diocese of Leeds to the Diocese of Middlesbrough.

The English martyrs were formerly commemorated in England with a feast day on 25 October. They are now celebrated together with all the 284 canonised or beatified martyrs of the English Reformation on 4 May.

The arcades and arches in the Church of the English Martyrs, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

• Sunday Masses are at 6 pm on Saturday evening and at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. Masses on holy days are at 9:30 am and 6 pm, and on All Saints’ Day at 9: 30 in York Minster. There are weekday Masses from Monday to Friday, and Mass is celebrated in the chapel of the Bar Covent at 12 noon on Fridays.

The Church of the English Martyrs was designed by the architects Williams and Jopling of Hull (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Two Quaker schools in York continue to reflect the Quaker values that inspired their founders

Bootham School on Bootham, York … founded by Quakers in 1823 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

York was teeming with tourists when we stayed there during the weekend. Tourism is a year-round part of York’s economy, and tourists are attracted by York’s Roman, Viking and Saxon heritage, York Minster and city centre locations, such as the Shambles.

York also has a strong Quaker tradition, embodied in families such as the Tuke and Rowntree families, the pioneering mental health work at the Retreat, and Bootham School and the Mount, two of the seven Quaker-run schools in England. There is a Quaker meetings at Friargate in York and five other meetings in the York area and Quaker burial grounds at the Retreat and in Bishophill.

The Quaker Burial Ground in Bishophill opened in 1667 and closed for burials in 1854. The headstones include those of the American Quaker John Woolman (1720-1772), a prominent spiritual writer and an early abolitionist, the American lawyer and grammarian Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the writer William Alexander (1768-1841), and several members of the Tuke family.

Bootham School is a Quaker-run school within walking distance of York Minster (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bootham is the name of a street in York runs along a ridge of slightly higher ground east of the River Ouse. It follows the line of Dere Street, the main Roman road from Eboracum to Cataractonium (Cattherick), and many Roman remains have been found in the area.

York City Council describes the street as ‘the finest of approaches to the city bars’. The tree-lined street is lined with expensive houses, hotels and prestigious offices.

The name Bootham probably comes from the Norse for ‘the place of the booths,’ referring to the poor huts in the area. From the Roman period, an alternative route from the bridge over the Ouse ran a short distance west of Bootham, and in the Saxon and Viking Jorvik periods, that was the main road to the north-west. However, after Saint Mary’s Abbey was built in this area, that road was blocked, and Bootham became the principal route. Part of the abbey walls runs immediately west of the south part of Bootham.

The poet WH Auden was born at 51 Bootham, opposite Bootham School (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Bootham School is a private Quaker boarding school on Bootham. It caters for boys and girls up to age of 19 and has about 600 pupils.

The school was founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and opened on 6 January 1823 in Lawrence Street, York, and the first headmaster was William Simpson (1823-1828). The school is now on Bootham, near York Minster. It is based in 51 Bootham, a house first built in 1804 for Sir Richard Vanden Bempde Johnstone, but it has since expanded into several neighbouring buildings.

The school’s motto Membra Sumus Corporis Magni (‘We are members of a greater body’) quotes Seneca the Younger (Epistle 95, 52).

Notable former pupils include the 19th-century radical politician John Bright, the mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson, the physicist Silvanus P Thompson, the historian AJP Taylor, the actor-manager Brian Rix, the social reformer Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree (1871-1954), the Nobel Peace Prize winner Philip Noel-Baker, and the chief executive of Marks & Spencer Stuart Rose.

A house immediately across the street from Bootham School, 51 Bootham, was the birthplace of the poet WH (Wystan Hugh) Auden (1907-1973), who was born in York on 21 February 1907. The Auden family moved to Solihull a year later, and the future poet was educated in Surrey, Norfolk and at Oxford.

The house on the corner of Bootham and Saint Mary’s where Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree was born in 1871 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A few doors away, at the corner of Bootham and Saint Mary’s, is the birthplace of the social reformer Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree (1871-1954), whose pioneering work in social science and management influenced the founders of the welfare state.

Rowntree is known for his three studies of poverty in York (1899, 1935, 1951). He visited every working class household in York, and his methodology inspired many subsequent researches in British empirical sociology. By strictly defining the concept of poverty in his studies, he revealed how the causes of poverty in York were more structural than moral, such as low wages, challenging the traditional view that the poor were responsible for their own plight.

Seebohm Rowntree was a son of the Quaker industrialist Joseph Rowntree and his wife Antoinette Seebohm. From Bootham School, he went on to study chemistry at Owen’s College, Manchester, before joining the family firm in 1889.

He was an advocate of family allowances and a national minimum wage, and argued that business owners should adopt more democratic practices like those at his own factory rather than more autocratic leadership styles. He was a close of David Lloyd George and Rowntree’s influence can be seen in the Liberal reforms passed when the Liberals were in government.

Rowntree’s Quaker upbringing influenced his business practices; he believed that the existence of companies that paid low wages was bad for the ‘nation’s economy and humanity’. His firm broke new ground in terms of industrial relations, welfare and management. His reforms in the working condition of the workers included introducing an eight-hour day in 1896, a pension scheme in 1906, a five-day working week and work councils in 1919, a psychology department in 1922, and a profit-sharing plan in 1923.

The Mount School moved to its present location in 1856 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

The Mount School is a private Quaker day and boarding school for girls up to 18. The school was founded as Trinity Lane (or York) Quaker Girls’ School in 1785 by the Yorkshire Quaker, Esther Tuke, wife of William Tuke.

Their grandson Samuel Tuke, along with William Alexander, Thomas Backhouse and Joseph Rowntree, moved the school in 1831 to Castlegate House. The school to moved to its current location at the Mount, a large, purpose-built house, in 1856, and remains on the same site on Dalton Terrace, a three-to-five-minute walk from where we were staying.

Notable alumnae of the Mount include the writers Dame AS Byatt, Dame Margaret Drabble and Frances Wilson, and the actors Dame Judi Dench and Mary Ure.

The school’s ethos continues to reflect the key Quaker values of simplicity, truth, equality, peace, social justice and sustainability.

The Quaker Meeting House in Friargate is one of five Quakers meetings in the York area (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Lent 2025: 12, Sunday 16 March 2025, Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II)

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings’ (Luke 13: 34) … a painting of Grey’s Guest House on Achill Island, Co Mayo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are now well into Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday, and today is the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II, 16 March 2025).

The Six Nations championship came to a climax yesterday with the last three fixtures, and each successive match yesterday was a nail-biting decider in its own way. Tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March 2025).

Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, 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, reading 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.

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings’ (Luke 13: 34) … farmyard hens in Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 13: 31-35 (NRSVA):

31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ 32 He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”.’

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together’ (Luke 13: 34) … the city of Jerusalem depicted on a tile in a restaurant in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

In my private meditations and prayers, I often reflect on words from Samuel Johnson from Lichfield, who compiled the first English-language dictionary but who is also often regarded as one of the great Anglican saints of the 18th century. Thinking about the stars at night, the great tragedies in the world and the unbounded love of God, Dr Johnson once wrote:

‘The pensive man at one time walks ‘unseen’ to muse at midnight, and at another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home he sits in a room lighted only by ‘glowing embers’; or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star to discover the habitation of separate souls, and varies the shades of meditation by contemplating the magnificent or pathetick scenes of tragick and epick poetry.’

I sometimes found as I stood presiding at or celebrating the Holy Communion or the Eucharist that I am taken aback by intense feelings of the love of God.

On one memorable occasion, this happened to me as I was using the ‘Prayer of Humble Access’ at the fraction, when we were breaking the Bread of Communion at the invitation.

It is a prayer that has gone out of fashion in many parishes, but it is a reminder that we come to the Table or the Altar not because of our own goodness, not in spite of our own sinfulness, but because of the overflowing mercy and grace that God gives us freely and with unlimited bounty:

We do not presume to come to this your table,
merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness
but in your manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.
But you art the same Lord,
whose nature is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

I was taken aback and was conscious of the love of God unexpectedly as I came to those words: ‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.’

What flashed across my mind was a video clip that had gone viral at that time on YouTube and social media, of two small, frail abandoned children caught up in the bloody civil war in Syria, fending for themselves by picking up crumbs of bread from the street to eat.

These two homeless mites, who were braver than any groups fighting or waging war in Syria, told the camera crew: ‘We go to sleep hungry, we wake up hungry.’

They had been separated from their parents. At the time, the Anglican mission agency, USPG, was working with the plight of Syrian refugees in Lesvos and Athens and other parts of Greece.

In that video clip, the 10-year-old girl said she had been collecting bread crumbs off the street with her brother because their area of Damascus, al-Hajar, has been under siege for more than 15 months.

‘If we had food, you wouldn’t have seen us here,’ she said.

But their final message to the world that had abandoned them was: ‘May you be happy and blessed with what God has given you!’

Europe takes pity on children like this when we see them on YouTube or on the 10 o’clock news. But when they land on the shores of the Aegean Islands in Greece, or make their way up through central Europe and cross the Channel into England, we deem them not worthy to gather up the crumbs under our table.

I have looked at this video clip again and again since then. And I think of the image of Christ in the Gospel reading this morning:

‘How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Luke 13: 34)

The children of the world are the future of the world. It does not matter whose children they are. It does not matter how many of them there are: whether they are two children searching for crumbs that I am not worthy to gather up, or small enough to be gathered in by a loving parent, or are countless in numbers like the stars, they are all embraced in the love of the loving and living God. They are all heirs to God’s promises.

And how we respond to them, how I respond to them, shows them what I think, what we think, of God and how much we believe in his promises.



Today’s Prayers (Sunday 16 March 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme is introduced today with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG:

‘We each have the power to change our world. We’re not all going to be Nobel Peace Prize winners and we’re not all going to have books written about our lives. But we all can impact someone’s life in a positive way.’

This is just some of the wisdom shared by the Revd Nontombi Tutu, Episcopal priest and human rights activist, as she led our inaugural Desmond Tutu Memorial Lecture on ‘Truth, the Path to Reconciliation’ held at York Minster.

She shared about the importance of being truthful; about our history, our own roles in societal ills and the power that we each must make change. To this end, she referenced a particular testimony that stood out to her during a hearing of Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a legal body tasked with exposing human rights abuses and promoting reconciliation after apartheid.

The letter, written by a young, white South African, read: ‘I didn’t know about policing in black classrooms. I didn’t know what my government was doing to my black compatriots. I didn’t know … and I recognise that part of me chose not to know’. So often, we stop at what we don’t know and brush things aside. How much more powerful is it, therefore, to courageously listen and speak the truth in love.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 16 March 2025) invites us to pray, reflecting on these words:

‘Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more’ (I Thessalonians 4: 1).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted
into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things
that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
you see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves:
keep us both outwardly in our bodies,
and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities
which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
by the prayer and discipline of Lent
may we enter into the mystery of Christ’s sufferings,
and by following in his Way
come to share in his glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

‘We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table’ (the Prayer of Humble Access) … preparing bread for the Eucharist early on a Sunday morning (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 memorial near Marble Arch commemorates Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish hero of the Holocaust

Philip Jackson’s monument of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg at Wallenberg Place, near Hyde Park in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

In a blog posting last night, I described my recent visit to the Western Marble Arch Synagogue near Hyde Park in London. The synagogue is in a curved terrace of period houses on Wallenberg Place, which was formerly part of Great Cumberland Place.

The crescent was originally intended as the east part of a complete circus on the Portman estate. The circus was never completed, and today the semi-circular open space is dominated by a larger-than-life monument to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, one of the outstanding heroic figures of the Holocaust and World War II, who saved the lives of as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews during World War II.

It is appropriate that this monumental sculpture stands outside one of London’s leading synagogues and close to the Swedish Embassy.

The 10 ft bronze monument was sculpted by Philip Jackson and shows Raoul Wallenberg standing against a bronze wall draped with the Swedish flag made up of 100,000 Schutzpässe, the protective passes Wallenberg used to rescue Hungarian Jews.

The monument was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 26 February 1997, at a ceremony attended by the President Ezer Weizman of Israel, who was on a state visit to London, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and survivors of the Holocaust. The attendance also included Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a former Hungarian Jewish refugee who chaired the Wallenberg Appeal, and Robert Davis, then the youngest Lord Mayor of Westminster.

The statue was described as a monument at the time of its unveiling rather than a memorial, as Wallenberg’s family believed that there was no evidence for his death.

The inscription on the sculpture reads: ‘Wallenberg’s bravery helped save the lives of as many as 100,000 men, women and children, destined for the death camps only because they were Jews. When, in January 1945, Budapest fell to the Soviet army, Wallenberg was taken under guard to Moscow where he vanished into the Soviet prison system. The last resting place of this selfless hero is unknown.

‘In 1944, armed only with determination and courage, Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest as a member of the neutral Swedish legation and set about recruiting the 230,000 Jews who remained, snatching many from Nazi and Hungarian death squads. He demanded the removal of others from trains departing to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He placed tens of thousand under the protection of the Swedish crown by issuing them with false passports, “Schutzpasses”, sheltering them in safe houses from which he flew the Swedish flag.

‘The twentieth century spawned two of history’s vilest tyrannies. Raoul Wallenberg outwitted the first but was swallowed up by the second. His triumph over Nazi genocide reminds us that the courageous and committed individual can prevail against even the cruellest state machine. The fate of the six million Jews he was unable to rescue reminds us of the evils to which racist ideas can drive whole nations. Finally his imprisonment reminds us not only of Soviet brutality but also of the ignorance and indifference which lead the free world to abandon him. We must never forget these lessons.’

The sculptor Philip Jackson is noted for his modern style and emphasis on form, and his sculptures can be seen in many cities in Britain and in Argentina and Switzerland.

His statue of Constantine the Great at York Minister is a bronze statue depicting the Roman Emperor Constantine I seated on a throne. It was commissioned by York Civic Trust and unveiled in 1998 to commemorates the accession of Constantine as Roman Emperor in the year 306 on the site.

His ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ in the Theatre District in Milton Keynes is part of his distinctive series of sculptures based on the Venetian carnival and masque, inspired by Venice and the Maschera Nobile. It was completed in 1997 and renovated in 2017.

Jackson’s many public commissions include the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park, and his twice life-size (6 metre) bronze statue of Bobby Moore, erected outside the main entrance at Wembley Stadium in 2007.

Philip Henry Christopher Jackson was born in 1944 and studied at the Farnham School of Art, now the University for the Creative Arts. After leaving school, he was a press photographer for a year and then joined a design company as a sculptor. He now works at the Edward Lawrence Studio in Midhurst, West Sussex, and lives nearby. Half of his time is spent on commissions and the other half on his gallery sculpture.

He is known for his major outdoor pieces, such as the Young Mozart in Chelsea and the Jersey Liberation sculpture. Recently, he was the acting Royal Sculptor to Queen Elizabeth II. His sources of inspiration have included Jacob Epstein, Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Oscar Nemon and Kenneth Armitage. But he says the most powerful influences in his life are his wife Jean and son Jamie who work with him.

Raoul Wallenberg would have been 84 when the monument was unveiled in 1997. No 26-40 Great Cumberland Place was renamed Wallenberg Place in 2014 in honour of Raoul Wallenberg. Two years later, 71 years after he had disappeared in the Soviet Union, Raoul Wallenberg was declared dead by Sweden in October 2016.

The bronze wall is draped with the Swedish flag made up of 100,000 ‘Schutzpässe’, the protective passes Raoul Wallenberg used to rescue Hungarian Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024: 29, 7 June 2024

The Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, is the only monastic building in York to have survived as a regular place of worship (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The week began with the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 2 June 2024). In the week after Trinity Sunday, I illustrated my prayers and reflections with images and memories of six churches, chapels and monasteries in Greece I know that are dedicated to the Holy Trinity. I am continuing that theme this week with images from churches, chapels or cathedral in England that are dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

StonyLive!, a celebration of the cultural talent in and around Stony Stratford, began on Saturday and continues until next Sunday (9 June). The StonyLive! Programme continues today with a number of creative events at venues throughout Stony Stratford.

I am in Dublin later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

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

Inside the Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, facing east (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 12: 35-37 (NRSVUE):

35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? 36 David himself, by the Holy Spirit, declared,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet” .’
37 “David himself calls him Lord, so how can he be his son?” And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

Inside the Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, facing west (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, York:

The Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, is one of the three surviving mediaeval churches on Micklegate in York. Today, Holy Trinity Church is only about half the length and width of the church before the dissolution of the monastic houses at the Tudor Reformation, but it is the only monastic building in York to have survived as a regular place of worship.

Holy Trinity Church predates the Norman Conquest and is recorded by 1066 as a church dedicated to Christ Church supported by a community of secular priests or canons.

Christ Church was a collegiate church on a large site at the highest and most central point of the walled enclosure on the west bank of the Ouse. This mirrors the similar prominent position of York Minster on the east bank of the Ouse, and the two communities were the only collegiate churches in the city before the Norman Conquest.

Both sites were of great importance in the Roman town plan: the Minster at the centre of the former walled garrison and Christ Church at the centre of the prosperous civilian town or colonia, the centre of administration for the Roman province of Britannia Inferior.

Christ Church (or Holy Trinity) may have been founded at about the same time as York Minster in the first phase of the conversion of Northumbria to Christianity in the seventh century and was a major Anglican minster. Some suggest it was the site of Alma Sophia, a sister church to York Minster founded in 780.

The early Christ Church may have been part of a single larger ecclesiastical enclosure covering over eight acres. This enclosure may have contained a cluster of chapels around an early church foundation, including Saint Mary Bishophill Junior and two small churches between the Roman road and Micklegate – Saint Gregory in Micklegate and All Saints in North Street.

Christ Church was listed in the Domesday Book in 1086 as one of five great northern churches, together with the minsters of Beverley, Durham and Ripon, as well as York Minster, and they were exempt from paying customary dues to either the king or the earl. But Christ Church was described as ‘a ruined and poverty stricken church.’

The church was re-founded ca 1089 as a Benedictine priory by Ralph Paynel and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It was under the care of the Benedictine Abbey of Marmoutier in Normandy, and the French monks who rebuilt the church became known as the ‘Alien’ Benedictines.

A double church was built, with one half (Holy Trinity) providing a place of worship for the monastic community and a second (Saint Nicholas) serving the parish. However, almost no evidence survives of the early churches on the site. The re-foundation of Christ Church as a Benedictine priory contributed to a general reform of a new parochial system completed in York by the 1230s.

The nave pillars in the south aisle date from the 13th century. The pillars in the north wall, also from the 13th century, indicate there was once a north aisle. The nave is all that remains of the original monastic church, although it has been much reduced in height and width over the centuries.

A beautiful 13th century Bestiary, or Book of Beasts, was produced by the Benedictine monks of Holy Trinity, and is now in Saint John’s College, Oxford.

York’s mediaeval Mystery Plays began each year outside the gateway of Holy Trinity and for generations the scripts for the plays were kept there. This was an annual theatrical spectacle, and the plays were performed by the guilds or trades of York to tell Bible stories.

The Guild of Corpus Christi was one of the greatest of these guilds. Its shrine was in Holy Trinity until 1431, when it was moved to the civic chapel of Saint William on Ouse Bridge at the foot of Micklegate. A Corpus Christi procession was held in York from at least 1366, and the guild may have been in existence by 1388.

The procession was the focus of the mystery plays. It started at Holy Trinity Church and continued down Micklegate over Ouse Bridge along Coney Street and up Stonegate to York Minster. This processional route, also used for royal processional entries to the city, and linked the sites of the two great pre-Conquest Minster churches in York.

The High Altar, reredos and east window in the Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The feast of Corpus Christi and the popularity of the guild increased in the early 15th century, following the execution of Archbishop Richard Scrope for his role in an uprising against Henry IV in 1405. Although he was never formally canonised, he was venerated in York as Saint Richard. A chapel containing a reliquary of his severed head was built where he was executed in the fields of Clementhorpe, near Micklegate.

Scrope had strong associations with Micklegate. His family owned Saint Martin’s Church in Micklegate, which was rebuilt 20 years after his death, possibly incorporating a shrine to Richard.

The growth of the guild was boosted by its association with Scrope’s cult and a wooden cup blessed by Scrope was bequeathed to the Guild of Corpus Christi in Holy Trinity Church in 1413.

Historians discuss whether there was a separate church dedicated to Saint Nicholas or if this was an altar dedicated to Saint Nicholas in the nave of Holy Trinity. The parishioners of Saint Nicholas built a stone belfry tower above the Saint Nicholas Chapel in 1453.

Holy Trinity continued to serve as a parish church throughout the Middle Ages, and wealthy parishioners founded chantries in the church. When the priory was dissolved with the other monastic houses in 1538, the parishioners continued to worship in the nave, which survived as a parish church.

The central tower collapsed in a great storm in 1551. The chancel of the former priory church was demolished, the stone was used to repair the city walls and Ouse Bridge, and the nave was restored but reduced in size.

For about 200 years from 1700, many of the sisters from the Bar Convent were buried in the churchyard and the chancel. The stocks in the churchyard date from the 18th century.

An 18th century memorial commemorates Dr John Burton, who wrote a two-volume book on monasteries in York. He was lampooned in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1760) as Dr Slop.

The south aisle was rebuilt in 1850-1851 by JB and W Atkinson of York. A new aisle, 3 metres (10 ft) wide and 18 metres (60 ft) long was added on the south side by opening the original arcades, and new pews were installed throughout the church.

The chancel and vestry were rebuilt in 1886-1887 by the York architects Charles Fisher and William Hepper. The chancel was rebuilt on the site of the central tower of the former monastery church, and truncated remnants of the 12th century masonry piers can still be seen. The chancel was 12 metres (38 ft) long and 7 metres (23 ft) wide, and included a new vestry and organ chamber.

The east window and the reredos depict saints associated with York and the north of England. The panels of the reredos flanking the central scene of the Supper at Emmaus depict six saints associated with the north: Cuthbert and Aidan of Lindisfarne with Hilda of Whitby; and Paulinus, Wilfred and John of Beverley, Bishops of York.

The west front was rebuilt by Charles Hodgson Fowler in 1902-1905. The fine roof bosses at the west end originally came from two other York churches, Saint Crux and Saint Martin, Coney Street.

The church has stained glass of national significance, with many works by Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907), one of the leading figures in 19th and 20th century decorative arts. His distinctive wheatsheaf monogram is seen in several windows.

The East Window (1907) is one of CE Kempe’s last great works before he died (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The East Window (1907) is one of Kempe’s last great works before he died. The window shows the Crucifixion and saints and church figures associated with York, including Saint John, Saint Helena, Eborius who was Bishop of York in 314, and Alcuin, the renowned scholar and Benedictine monk.

Kempe’s West Window (1904) depicts Saint Benedict of Nursia, Saint James, Saint Martin and Saint Thomas whose altars were in the former priory church.

Kempe’s window in Saint Nicholas Chapel (1905) depicts Saint Nicholas restoring to life three children who had been killed by a wicked inn keeper and kept in a brine tub. A window in Saint Nicholas Chapel (1953) by George Pace and Harry Stammers is a collaboration between an influential modern architect and an important 20th century stained glass designer.

The church also has windows by two of York’s most significant exponents of the Gothic Revival, John Joseph Barnett (1789-1859) and John Ward Knowles. The North Chancel window (1850) by Barnett is the earliest surviving stained glass in the church. The North Nave window (1877) is by Knowles.

The sculpture of the Holy Trinity, carved by Matthias Garn in 2010, is a reproduction of the mediaeval original once in the church and now in the chapel of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York.

The church was united with Saint John’s Church, Micklegate, York, in 1934 and with Saint Martin-cum-Gregory, Micklegate, in 1953.

Holy Trinity is a living, inclusive church. The Revd Simon Askey, former Dean of Undergraduate Law, University of London, and Honorary Assistant Curate of Walworth Saint John in the Diocese of Southwark, is the Priest-in-Charge of Holy Trinity. The Sung Eucharist on Sunday mornings is at 11 am. The church is currently only open during and after the Sunday.

The reredos in the Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, Micklegate, depicts the Supper at Emmaus and six saints associated with the north (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 7 June 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Volunteers Week.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (7 June 2024) invites us to pray:

Let us pray for our partners around the Anglican Communion who are providing basic human needs to those in the most difficult circumstances. May that cup of cold water in your name be rewarded.

The sculpture of the Holy Trinity (2010) by Matthias Garn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

The chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas beneath the tower at the north-west corner (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Kempe’s West Window (1904) depicts Saint Benedict, Saint James, Saint Martin and Saint Thomas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Peace Bell beside the tower and the north door (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Holy Trinity is a living, inclusive church and is open during and after the Sunday services (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)