MEDIA STUDIES

WORSHIP WHILE YOU WORK

George Trefgarne discovers a

surprising religious revival in the City of London

IN the City of London, the Bishop is back in the Deanery for the first time since the Great Fire. From here Richard Chartres has spent the three years since he was appointed presiding over a renaissance in the City's 39 churches. He has not done this by turning them into restaurants, 'spirit zones' or lap-dancing clubs, but has taken the radical path of reintroducing religion.

By the early 1990s it seemed that the Church of England wanted to sell the pass in the City. St Ethelburga's, the 14th-centu- ry church blown up by the IRA, was due to have its rubble preserved in a glass cube. Then came the infamous Templeman report (which City clerics are very sensitive about), suggesting that many of the church- es should effectively be mothballed. This led one architectural historian to call for the unfortunate Lord Templeman to be `kicked into the Thames'.

The appointment of Richard Chartres as Bishop in 1995 changed everything. He said he had not been anointed Bishop in order to preside over the dissolution of the churches, and asked Canon Peter Delaney to help find some answers.

In the last 18 months five new part-time priests have been appointed, taking the total number of City clergy to over 30. Four of the tiny parishes that were without priests have new appointments. With the help of the Friends of City Churches, all are now, open. In every one there is rising attendance. Based in a small house oppo- site the Tower where William Penn was born, Delaney has had the busiest Christ- mas he can remember, and at his own church, All Hallows-by-the-Tower, there have been 19 carol services. 'I think you could say we have a momentum,' he says.

Chartres believes that because they have been around for so long the churches are natural havens amid the turmoil of the City. `When I first came here, I started to walk round,' he says. 'I looked at the churches and I suppose I interrogated the buildings. Each one is all about its connections with the past and the present. They are about memory as a positive, dynamic force that allows you to face the future with confidence.

At the centre of the City has always been St Paul's, but spread out around the Cathe- dral each church has its own distinct identi- ty. Chartres says a religious revival is begin- ning, imported from abroad. He believes huge impersonal forces such as decolonisa- tion and globalisation have created deep uncertainty about the nature of nations and peoples which religion can help solve. 'In this country we have been late in receiving this message,' he says, 'because many peo- ple are still in retreat from the public school chapel and there is still an Anglo- American anti-religious prejudice. But we are catching on. The City is a great listen- ing-post and is picking up this message worldwide.'

This varied approach means that if you are of an evangelical bent (as many in the City seem to be), you can go to St Helen Bishopsgate at Tuesday lunchtime, where 400 regularly worship. If it is music you are after, the best choir is at St Bride's and the best organ recitals are at St Magnus the Martyr at London Bridge. In the run-up to Christmas many of the churches have been holding carol services for companies. St Margaret Lothbury has had 16 of these, including two for the Bank of England and one each (attended by about 150) for Cazen- ove, Robert Fleming and Slaughter & May.

One of the most interesting initiatives has been the foundation of a think-tank called the Centre for Marketplace Theolo- gy (CMT). This is based at St Botolph's Aldersgate. The newly appointed rector there, David Prior, is full-time director of the centre. One of the problems the Church of England has faced in recent years has been a widening gulf between it and people in business. CMT is intended to bridge this gulf and has recruited 2,000 members in the last three months.

Malcolm Matson, a City financier who founded Colt Telecom, is chairman of CMT. He says, 'It's an institute to help equip Christians at work, but it is also about speaking back into the Church about the legitimacy of the City — this great wealth-creating engine. The Church has been suffering from bad theology, where there has been the attitude, "What's a nice Christian like you doing working in the City? You should be a teacher." Well, I believe that God made us creators and that wealth creation is a good activity, as long as it is done according to God's principles, such as helping the needy.'

Matson thinks the whole 'fat cats' phe- nomenon has got out of hand. 'What we really should be asking ourselves', he says, 'is not about how rich people are, but why don't we have a great breed of philanthropists'. Let us hope Matson's plans are not derailed by his one-man campaign to abolish the City Corporation (the local council) which has caused him to be blackballed as an alder- man. But that is another story.

In the last few weeks John Mothersole, who used to work at Nestle, the Swiss con- fectionery company, has been appointed as priest in charge at St Mary Aldermary at the bottom of Bow Lane. It is the first time there has been a priest there for three years. At All Hallows London Wall a song- writing priest, Garth Hewitt, is now in place. He has written a hymn for City churches and, perhaps more curiously, a little tune for Yasser Arafat.

If all this sounds a bit radical and Low Church, there are plenty of services which use the Book of Common Prayer. Victor Stock, the well-known rector of St Mary-le- Bow, presides over matins, the Eucharist and evensong every day. He says, 'Initia- tives? Initiatives? No more initiatives, thank you.' He then adds, more seriously, `We have found that the future of religion relates to working timetables. It can be done. There are just fewer Sunday congre- gations and people tend to worship episod- ically and at special events. We are taking religion to the workplace.'

Stock also holds what are known as Tuesday dialogues. 'St Mary-le-Bow is famous for them,' he says. 'You might have Judi Dench in one pulpit and an ex-foreign secretary in another.'

St Ethelburga's is being rebuilt as a Cen- tre for Peace and Reconciliation. This is not as hippyish as you might think. It will be an institute of international affairs and still retain its function as a church. As part of the restoration, offices will be built at the back and the fabric will be restored. Chartres insists that this will not be pastiche and that the building will retain some of the scars of the bombing as they too are now part of its identity.

The City would seem an unlikely place for a religious revival and there is plenty of work still to be done. The churches still have to find ways of drawing attention to themselves. In the spring, a series of pil- grimages between the churches will begin, based around the lives of people like Sir Christopher Wren, St John Fisher, Grin- ling Gibbons and St Thomas More. Victor Stock suggests the ringing of bells (St Mary-le-Bow's are rung at least three times a day). 'You cannot miss it, it's absolutely deafening,' he says. 'It's important to make a big noise. '

The author is on the Daily Telegraph's City staff