Let us prey....

Gratia dei sum id quod sum....







Many years ago, before I discovered East Anglia, I (occasionally) drank at Ye Old Mitre Tavern in Holborn. This fine old pub (established in 1547) hides away in Ely Court, between Hatton Garden and Ely Place which was, from 1290 to 1772, the London home of the Bishops of Ely, and also, until fairly recently, considered a part of Cambridgeshire.

It took me until 1984, however, when escaping for a day from a course in Cambridge, before I visited Ely itself and had lunch with a young lady friend at The Lamb.  About all I knew then was that Ely was an island 

(my guide was the Venerable Bede: Elge is in the province of the East Angles, a district of about six hundred families, of the nature of an island, encompassed, as has been said, with marshes or waters, and therefore it has its name from the great plenty of eels taken in those marshes.....) and I had heard tell of Hereward the Woke [Wake?  Ed] who is said to have roamed the fens and slept in a reed bed.

At that time, as an impoverished student, I could not afford to enter the cathedral, but since I became eligible for a bus pass and winter fuel allowance, and moved nearer, I have managed to return to the Isle of Ely a number of times in recent years.  So I can now safely say, I Love Ely.....

The town (it was long considered a city as the seat of a diocese, but was officially granted a charter by QE2 in 1974 - it is the second smallest city in the UK , after Wells) has a population of 18,000, and has existed since 673, when Saint [Surely not then a Saint? Ed] Etheldreda, daughter of King Anna [? Ed] of the East Angles, founded a monastery here. The monastery was destroyed by Danish invaders in 870, but was rebuilt and became a famous abbey and shrine.

The 'Ship of the Fens' (as the cathedral has become to be known) took some 300 years to complete, partly because the central tower over the crossing collapsed in 1322 as a result of messing around with the foundations of the new (and glorious) Lady Chapel.

But not to be daunted, Alan de Walsingham (Sacrist, or Clerk of Works at the time) had the brilliant idea of hoisting eight 63 foot long, 17 tonne timbers up to support an octagonal lantern, which, with some later tweaks, still survives as one of the wonders of the medieval world.

Once upon a time the top of the octagon was the belfry, but it was noted that the whole construction creaked and swayed whenever they hit the clappers, so they gave that (ap)pealing idea up.... Nowadays there are just two hundred tons of timber and another two hundred tons of lead capping what would otherwise be a monumental hole in the roof.

In August this year, the artist Sean Henry exhibited 28 sculptures of variously sized human forms, created with bronze, steel, plaster and ceramics and painted with oil and exterior paints, in and by the cathedral. The exhibition, under the title Am I my brother's keeper? reflected the brightly coloured effigies that once were displayed on plinths and tombs in the cathedral but which were hacked and destroyed in 1539 by the minions of King Damian Lewis [I think you mean H8? Ed]

Ursula's Dream (2001)

The curator of the exhibition, Jacquiline Creswell, suggested that it could be interpreted as an enquiry into one's moral responsibility towards others.  The Very Reverend Mark Bonney, Dean of Ely, notes that the niches of the Cathedral would once have been inhabited by sculptures of saints with a capital 'S.' 

Man Lying On His Side (2000)

Sean Henry makes us think again about who are the 'saints'....  The sculptures in this exhibition are not named individuals, they are representative of us all and speak of the interconnectedness of us all and our responsibility one to another.

Hedda  (2018)

Am I my brother's keeper?  Mark Bonney asked himself - yes very definitely I am - and I am deeply challenged by that.

Lying Man (2020)

I am sure that others have been asking themselves the same question since the independent review into the Church of England’s handling of allegations of serious abuse by the late John Smyth was published the other day. Keith Makin, who led the independent review said, The abuse at the hands of John Smyth was prolific and abhorrent. Words cannot adequately describe the horror of what transpired.

Seated Figure (2016)

Many of the victims who took the brave decision to speak to us about what they experienced have carried this abuse silently for more than 40 years.

Despite the efforts of some individuals to bring the abuse to the attention of authorities, the responses by the Church of England and others were wholly ineffective and amounted to a coverup.

So what has this to do with Eels, you ask?  Well.... Eels are slippery.  

And Stephen Conway who was Bishop of Ely for 13 years, before being translated to Lincoln in July 2023, had this to say on November 11th:

The victims and survivors of abuse are at the centre of my prayers as this Review is published.

In light of the Review, I understand that there were further actions I could have taken following my reporting of the disclosures made to us in the Diocese of Ely about John Smyth. I am sorry that I did not pursue these actions at that time.

The Bishop's House

On November 12th Stephen Conway published another statement, saying: I am clear that I did all within my authority as a Bishop of the Church of England, bearing in mind that I had no authority over an entirely independent province on another continent.

I acknowledge fully that my fault was in not rigorously pursuing Lambeth about that province-to-province communication, and for this I am deeply sorry.

On November 13th the Rt Revd Dr Dagmar Winter, Bishop of Huntingdon and currently Acting Bishop of Ely, responded to the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury following the publication of the Makin Report. Any of us who have read even only parts of the Report, he said, will be sickened and saddened beyond words, also angered, both by the abuse and by the failings within our church in effective safeguarding..... At times like this, it can be hard to be a committed member of the Church of England. This kind of moral trauma to the church's faithful servants is part of the wickedness of what has happened.

Yesterday afternoon saw the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. His decision shows the seriousness with which he takes the criticisms contained in the Report and demonstrates his willingness to take personal and institutional responsibility for the failures identified. I am grateful to him for this, as I am also conscious of his burden of leadership and his achievements over the years.

We should be clear that the Archbishop’s resignation does not alter the safeguarding challenge for the whole church. Our only proper response can be a renewed and ever more determined commitment to safeguarding, to the implementation of new recommendations, to our support of our Parish Safeguarding Officers and to our Diocesan Safeguarding Team.....

Am I my brother's keeper?  

I came late to the TV series, Wolf Hall [Woolfall?  Will ful? Ed] and am only now catching up.  I won't offer an opinion on the quality of the entertainment, but Peter Kosminsky, the director of the series, said: This is a first for me..... It is about the politics of despotism, and how you function around an absolute ruler....

Does that ring any bells?

Ring them bells St Peter

Where the four winds blow

Ring them bells with an iron hand

So the people will know....

Bob Dylan

Ring Them Bells

Although I have been enchanted and fascinated by the magnificence of The Ship of the Fens, Perhaps visiting these places should make us think a little more about some of the darker corners of human experience?  It is estimated that 300 workmen died whilst working on Ely cathedral.  And how many others have suffered at the hands of one religion or another?

Perhaps it is no longer acceptable to say: But by the grace of God I am what I am.  Those words, in Latin (Gratia Dei sum quod sum) are inscribed above the entrance to the Bishop West Chantry Chapel in Ely Cathedral, which dates from 1534 and lies at the end of the South choir-aisle.  Sean Henry placed several figures in this chapel in conversation with each other in his exhibition.  

Jacquiline Creswell suggests that within the context of a sacred space, Am I my brother's keeper? [was] a portal through which bridges may be built between people both inside and outside the community, helping to open up discussion about our shared humanity.  OK. Fine. But the idea that we are what we are by the grace of God seems like an excuse to me.

Not one of Sean Henry's

Whatever happened to mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa? 

Let us prey......?

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Ely Cathedral - December 2020

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