#Lockdown Pilgrimage - 3rd Sunday in Lent

Last Sunday's pilgrimage  had left me with a nasty taste in my mouth.  Could the fate of St. Michael's Sco Ruston be the writing on the wall for other rural churches?  For my local church, St. John's in  Coltishall?



Today's pilgrimage brought me to St. John's and a particular length of wall. The oldest part of my parish church, dating from 11th Century.  Just to the east of the North Porch there areseveral pieces of  re-used Roman brick and tile built into the fabric.  It is possible, but by no means certain, there was a wooden building on the site that predated this wall, but we can be certain the brick was made before the end of Roman occupation. No later than the 4th Century.


Among the haphazard assortment of broken pieces there is small section of complete bricks laid in a herring-bone arrangement. These complete bricks are a standard  15" square by 1 1/2" Bricks like these were used to build the cathedral church in the Emperor Constatine's northern capital at Trier in Germany.  



Constantine had begun his military campaign to rule the Roman Empire unopposed from his British base in York. (York Minister is built over the site of his HQ) Yet, when the time came came for him reboot the Roman Empire as Christian, he built no great churches here.  
From the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD70 to Constantine's church building campaign in the 4th Century, there had been no great Christian structures neither church building, nor the highly developed organisational structures of bishops, dioceses, archdeacons, parishes and so on; that we imagine when we hear the word church.  Speaking into that situation the author of 1 Peter imagines Christian people as precious stones, being built into a temple fit for God's own dwelling place. 

Hmnn.......  

In all likely hood there were Christians and Christian Communities in Norfolk before the 7th Century but church structures, buildings and organisation, only become visible after that date. I think we should be able to manage with fewer structures than we have at present. The challenge is to flourish as a people among whom God is present.


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