#Lockdown Pilgrimage - 3rd Sunday of Epiphany

This week's pilgrimage took me in the opposite direction from last Sunday. In some ways it echoed last weeks walk, going  to  another ancient church, another empty niche and another 15th century tower. All in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.


My destination was St. Peter's, Belaugh, through frosty meadows...





Belaugh Church's patron was the first Bishop of Rome, St. Peter, the Apostle, the fisherman from Galilee. With a river and a boatyard, I think St. Peter would feel at home in Belaugh. His mate, the chippy from Nazareth, might have made himself useful in the boatyard.

When they built this church, a link with Rome was considered , 'a good thing'! 
The Pope was head of the Church, Rome was a pilgrim destination, so to have a statue of Peter seemed natural.  The empty niche dates from the Protestant Reformation  in Henry VIII's reign. In a reverse of all that had been, Rome now represented all that was bad in religion; getting rid of the statue seemed the natural thing to do!  Only some people didn't go along with that thinking. So we get Roman Catholics, who hung onto the old thinking; and Protestants who rejected it.  And they did not disagree well! In fact, they got into the habit of burning each other to death. Hard to fathom what part of Jesus words, "Love one another, as I have loved you" they didn't get!

That was not the first time that Christians had fallen out with each other big time!  Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics fell out in 1054 and they haven't  made up yet! The earliest parts of Belaugh Church date from about that time  So it's a good place to think about the Church's divisions, to pray for its unity and wonder how a divided Church might work together in the post-Covid world. 


The blind Romanesque arcading in the south wall shout 'Saxon architecture'! It might date from before 1054!  The tower was a late addition. Added shortly before the link with Rome was sundered and the image of St. Peter smashed. 
The splintering of the Church and the bad tempered disagreements didn't end when the Church of England separated itself from the Roman Catholics.  Baptists, Congregationalists, several different Methodist connections and so on separated from the C of E and from each other.

The 20th Century saw some healing of the rifts. Today discussion between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches continue through ARCIC and there's a new attitude of openness between divided churches. 

For my part, as a Church of England clergyman, I have assented, in a historical sense, to the 39 Articles of Religion and understand the C of E's assertion that "The Bishop of Rome has no authority in this realm."  But I don't think that's right. Pope Francis, the Bishop of Rome, has "some authority in this realm"!  Not legal authority,  but a spiritual and pastoral authority as leader of the Western Christianity.  I am really looking forward to reading.......


and reflecting with Francis how we might build a better Post- Covid future.





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