I have always been fascinated with British history. As a child, reading about the monarchs, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, Celts and Romans, it all intrigued me. I was also fascinated by Christianity. Being raised in a denomination with a comparatively short history, I was keen to learn about great Christian figures beyond my Pentecostal upbring. So when I discovered the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History at the age of twelve, I was captivated. The stories of great saints and miraculous encounters engaged me in a compelling way, and its legends stuck with me. It meant that when I recently began my master’s research, I could think of a no more worthwhile topic to explore.
On my drive south from a week of research in Scotland, I decided I would finally stop by Durham Cathedral as a sort of ‘micro pilgrimage’ to pay my respects to St Bede and the miracle-working monk St Cuthbert.
As I knelt before Bede’s tomb, I couldn’t help but feel the eyes of those around me wondering what I was doing. Behind me, a student band began rehearsing for something, tuning and strumming as I tried to pray a decade of the rosary. At the tomb of a saint, I felt out of place praying.
Around me, visitors trundled through, taking photographs and chatting. I decided the band was likely part of Durham’s University's Christian Union setting up for a church service. As for the visitors, I accepted this as a normal part of cathedral life today; after all, cathedrals have always had visitors.
However, leaving the crypt, I was reminded that the cathedral’s earliest visitors were pilgrims, and that I may have looked less alien praying amongst them than amongst my contemporaries.
I proceeded to St Cuthbert’s tomb and heard another band – far louder, and not a worship group. Below the crossing, in the altar’s place, was a stage for a big concert. I would later discover that this was the soundcheck Heather Small’s concert due to take place that evening. My heart sank. In disbelief I stared.
As I prayed at Cuthbert’s tomb, it was to thudding drums, and misaligned harmonies. I prayed in tumult. Kneeling there, I wondered what St Cuthbert might have said at seeing this consecrated cathedral’s new usage.
I left the tomb and arrived at the chapel of Holy Communion accompanied by the next song’s introduction. At the entrance to the chapel was a sign which read:
“Please use this chapel as a place for quiet and prayer. The Sacrament of Holy Communion is reserved here… the living presence of Jesus with his Church.”
Despite my own Catholic views on the Anglican Eucharist, I couldn’t help but feel that Christ was present, and that He was not amused by the irony of the situation. I let grief wash over me, but this was followed by overwhelming exasperation – all set to the chorus of ‘Blame it on the Boogie’. I opted to ‘blame it on the Dean’ instead.
This story could represent one person’s experience of a rogue Dean’s impact on one cathedral. But sadly, this is not the case. Widely reported was Canterbury Cathedral’s recent ‘Rave in the Nave’. But they were relatively late to the club compared to Ely Cathedral, which has sold out again for its September Silent Disco. In 2019, Rochester Cathedral became a crazy golf course, Norwich a helter skelter.
St Edmundsbury’s Dean has decided that the last few annual beer festivals were such a hit, consecration can temporarily be suspended again to attract revellers. I am sure they will be pondering the Divine whilst also meditating on hops and bitters; all under the great west window’s depiction of the Day of Judgement. I fear the incongruity will be lost on them.
It is ultimately about money and visitors. If you speak to the Anglican clergy allowing this, they will remind you that it is expensive to keep an old building, and that, as a St Edmundsbury vicar explained to me, ‘it gets new people into church’.
This may be true. It does generate a lot of money, and I imagine there are cases in which God uses sacrilege for redemption. But the CofE leadership must admit they are missing, or dismissing, the point of a cathedral. Its walls outline a consecrated area, separate from the secular. If people enter and see the same mind-numbing entertainment as everywhere else, how can they see that Christ has something unique to offer?
Sacrilegious cathedral usage is representative of a wider problem, however. Some in the CofE leadership are acting as a mirror, reflecting the culture back to itself, rather than being a source of Christ’s light.
As I reconverted to Christianity, I did not look for gimmickry aimed at entertaining or appeasing me – that was everywhere in the licentious culture around me. Instead, I found myself in Coventry Cathedral, overwhelmed by the ancient truths of the liturgy. It was so different to the culture I was trying to escape.
People are attracted to the countercultural, the places that offer genuine fulfilment in an age of shallow gratification. Decades of social appeasement have left the CofE more depleted than ever, its cathedrals empty. Nevertheless, it seems resistant to change its ways, instead opting to be the party captain of a booze cruise, raucously going down with its ship. It’s time the CofE admitted this, if not to the public, then to itself.
Catholic Herald version - https://thecatholicherald.com/i-felt-out-of-place-praying-at-the-tomb-of-a-saint-a-pilgrim-finds-durham-cathedral-inhospitable-as-it-prepares-for-a-pop-concert/