Standing room only at the church that ‘just does the Bible’
By Tristram Llewellyn Jones, TCW:
WE ARE used to hearing messaging from the woke, secular and now Islamic fundamentalist movements that Christianity is in decline, Islam is on the rise and that both these trends are not reversible.
In a world of harsh rhetoric and relentless negative messages, it is easy to become despondent and pick up this prevailing narrative that Britain, culturally at least, is undergoing irreversible change and that we might as well go along with it.
Last year, quite out of the blue, I experienced a single event which confounded that message when I received a surprising invitation – to the baptism of a young Englishman into Eastern Orthodoxy in, of all places, Shrewsbury. As an increasingly occasional Anglican I had no idea of what to expect from either this church or the service. What followed was a considerable revelation.
The Church of the 318 Holy Fathers started life as a pre-AD 700 Anglo-Saxon church but the site has been in use for forms of worship for more than 4,000 years. In 1991 it was rediscovered in a dilapidated state by the Shrewsbury Orthodox community who lovingly transformed it over the years. The surrounding open fields have been filled by one of those soulless modern estates, yet its setting perfectly contrasts the enduring and the transient new.
Arriving slightly late to join the baptism service, I had no idea what to expect, but opening the church door was almost a ‘through the wardrobe’ experience. The tiny old building was dimly lit by candles, scented with incense and icons of British saints were all around, while the large circular font was being prepared with warm water for the service. The young man in question was dressed in a white robe.
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