The End of an Era

Last week I attended the funeral of a dear friend. He was the parish priest of the church my partner and I attended whilst at university in Manchester. My partner also lodged at the church for a couple of years.

We were associated with the church for about ten years in total, from 1984 to 1993, during my partner’s undergraduate years, my postgraduate years and my subsequent work in the area as a church related community worker, before I got a post in the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham. I am not sure that I would say that this was the golden age of the church.

It was part of the tradition of Anglo-Catholic churches that were built in deprived parts of our major cities to provide support and faith, and a glimpse of heaven through the glorious worship of the church, for the people of the area. This was also a tradition that both my grandfather and great-grandfather had also been a part of.

Like so many of these churches the community had declined, in this case the old slum housing had been demolished, the people moved out and a scattering of new houses built with a mixture of people, moved in from different parts of the city. Many of the congregation had once been part of the parish but at the time that we were there they also travelled in. The church also attracted a small number of students who were drawn, like us, to the worship, the theology and the tradition.

I was honoured to serve at the church and, for much of the last five years, as MC (master of ceremonies) at the weekly mass and major festivals. The priest we knew retired in the mid 1990s and the church itself was closed a few years later, all part of the fall out from the vote for women’s ordination in the Church of England.

The priest, our friend, died just short of his ninetieth birthday and the community that gathered to attend his funeral was drawn largely from those we knew during our time at the church in the 1980s. There were a few from his current place of worship, where the funeral was held, and some clergy, both Anglican and Catholic, who had known him over the years. It was, however, meeting up with those we had known, and had largely lost contact with, over thirty years ago that probably left the most lasting impression on me.

We were all older, but I was still shocked by meeting a group of those who had all been children during our time at the church, many of whom had served with me, and who were now in their forties. I found it difficult to recognise just who was who. Many of those who had been part of the congregation have also died and I was very aware that those who had gathered were something of a remnant. This community, however, is unlikely ever to meet again and there was a strong sense, mentioned by a number of those I spoke to, of the end of an era, a final farewell to the church, its ministry and its people.

It was not just the end of an era for this particular church, however. The tradition that this church represented has all but disappeared from the Church of England. Practically all the churches that I knew from this tradition in and around Manchester have closed, been repurposed or demolished, and most of the clergy have either died or moved on.

There was already a sense, in the 1980s, that was a dying tradition. The priest whose funeral we attended always put this down to a decline in the teaching of the faith in the churches, a focus on the peripherals, the liturgy, the ceremony, the colour, the music, and an unwillingness to teach clearly what these elements meant and why they we so significant and so central to the faith.

In the nineteenth century, and the early years of the twentieth, clergy and people had had to fight to establish and maintain the Catholic tradition within Anglicanism. Many had turned to the new parishes of the inner cities, not just because of the call to serve the poor, which was significant, but also because the mainstream of the Church did not want them anywhere else.

From what had begun as an outward facing missionary tradition with strong emphasis on the social gospel, the Anglo-Catholic movement had become somewhat inward looking, obsessed with issues of authority and torn apart by the debates around women’s ordination and other matters in the wider Anglican Church. There were few, if any, significant leaders and fewer still that earned widespread respect within the movement. The writing was on the wall long before the vote in synod scattered the community and its tradition and marked the end of another kind of era within the church.

The funeral was held at the Oratory in Manchester. My partner and I attend the Oratory in Birmingham. There are some significant similarities between the Oratorian tradition and that of Anglo-Catholicism, and not only a shared devotion to St John Henry Newman and his work.

The Oratory of St Philip Neri grew out of a commitment to prayer and to the service of the poor of the city, in this case of Rome in the seventeenth century. Some of that tradition has been retained. The devotion to the liturgy, the need to use the very best in terms of music and art that in the service of the liturgy, is common to both traditions, as is the somewhat detached response to formal church authorities.

Some of the various Oratories in the UK today still exist in the more deprived areas of our cities but it would be difficult to say that ‘the social gospel’ is still a strong part of the current reality, although it is still seen occasionally.

It was fitting, however, that the funeral of our friend was held in an Oratorian church, with well performed liturgy, an incredible choir, and a recognition of the tradition. He would probably have appreciated it. And while the Oratorian tradition continues to thrive, at least in Birmingham, I still cannot help seeing the whole event of the funeral as an end to a very important era, in my life, and in the wider life of the church.