SHANTY singers greeted the arriving congregation at Exeter Cathedral on Sunday 11th October for what is thought to have been the first ever national Harvest of the Sea celebration — recognising fishermen and -women, their families, and the communi...

“WE HAVE really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” So quipped Oscar Wilde in his first published short story, “The Canterville Ghost”. The bon mot showed off not only Wilde’s wit, but also the way in which tra...

All Shall be Well: Through Lent with Julian of Norwich by Richard Harries (SPCK, £11.99 (£10.79); 978-0-281-09225-3). “Over six hundred years ago, Julian of Norwich lived through an age of extraordinary turmoil, including the devastation of the Bl...

I BEGAN my church “career”, such as it is, as a volunteer. Sitting cross-legged in a circle with a bunch of under-fives and their weary mothers, I learned how to make interesting things out of loo-roll innards, how many tea bags to put in an insti...

SEVENTEEN churches in the ten per cent most deprived parishes in the country are among the recipients of the first round of the Places of Worship Renewal Fund. Among them is St John’s, Bowling, in Bradford, a Grade II listed building. It was built...

A NATURALIST and Reader in Bedfordshire managed to spot a 6mm snail, Balea sarsii, in the crevices of the north wall of St Margaret’s, Higham Gobion — a discovery made all the more remarkable because the species has never been recorded in the coun...

TO THE people of eighteenth century England, nuns were mysterious, unknown and odd: women who had disappeared from the landscape of the country after the Reformation. According to Susan Scholastica Jacob, many viewed them through the prism of popu...

Bishops discuss candidates for episcopal ministry as nine sees remain vacant

AN ANGLICAN clinic is one of the only remaining operating health-care facilities in a health system at breaking point in Yemen, owing to escalating conflict and a humanitarian crisis. The Ras Morbat Eye Clinic in Aden is still offering treatment f...

THIS is the third and final volume in a short series of imaginative retellings of the stories of characters in the Gospels. Some are well-known, others not; some are remembered by their names, others by their origin, their relationship to another,...

I PUFF out my cheeks and collapse onto the sofa. I give a little sniff and a big sigh. This morning was the final Sunday service of my curacy. The presents have been exchanged, the prosecco has been drunk, the sermon sobbed through. I sit next to ...

A TRANSLATION service for churches that can provide live captions and spoken translation on any phone has been enabled by a “huge shift” in machine learning, its product and innovation lead, Mike Ashelby, said this week. Breeze Translate works on ...

“EVERYONE wants their Christmas to be full of joy and light on waste,” the deputy CEO of Transform Trade, Jon McNaughton, said, as the charity launched its “Crackerless Christmas” campaign, which seeks to prevent 10,000 crackers going to landfill ...

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI’s Selva morale e spirituale, published in 1641, is a collection of his work as Maestro di Cappella at St Mark’s, Venice, spanning several decades. In their Wigmore Hall recital last month, the Italian early-music group Il Pomo d...

THERE is not much to distinguish the little town of Vallauris in south-eastern France, though it is celebrated for its pottery, thanks to the rebirth of its ceramics industry in the 1950s when Pablo Picasso lived there. The commune was run in thos...

AROUND 300 affordable homes are to be built on land sold by the diocese of Leeds, it was announced last week. A statement issued by the developer, Breck Homes, said that the development at Lees Hall Road in Dewsbury would be its largest affordable...

Susan Gray explores the sad story of the artist Richard Dadd

He warns that the downgrading of the British consulate will hamper diplomatic work and restrict services to Palestinians

Have a go at our next caption competition. Send entries by email only to captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk by 9am, Monday 19 October We invite readers’ ideas for photos: please provide a credit and confirm that those pictured are happy for the ...

IS IT a truth universally acknowledged that the exercise of prudence in the face of impetuousity may, but may not, lead to possession of good fortune? It is a question that Jane Austen was asking in her debut novel, as does Georgia Oakley’s film S...

THE campaign group Christian Climate Action (CCA) has urged members of the National Trust to compel its trustees to “seek a bank which has a moral and ethical outlook”. A motion has been tabled for the Trust’s AGM in Swindon, on 7 November. Online...

The Revd Alan Trigle writes: AN ACADEMICALLY and linguistically learned parish priest, Canon William Taylor, who died on 7 July, strove tirelessly to strengthen Anglican relationships with the wider Church. The ebullient side of his character was ...

THEY appear on the sides of dangerous roads, on busy street corners, and beside the railings of city parks. Characterised by battery-operated tea lights, teddy bears, and scarves, they emerge organically, usually disappear after a few months, or s...

TWO in five 13- to 17-year-olds in relationships experienced emotional or physical abuse in 2024, data in a report from the Children’s Society suggest. The charity’s report, Red Flags we Don’t See: Missed signs and missed support in teenage relati...

FOR 30 years of his ordained ministry in the Church of England, Fr Arthur Salter, who died on 8 July, had a twin vocation. The first was to St Silas’s, Pentonville, where he was appointed in 1970 and served dutifully as its parish priest. The seco...

Bishop Budde works to get out the vote THE Bishop of Washington, the Rt Revd Mariann Edgar Budde, appears in a new advertisement encouraging people to vote in the upcoming mid-term elections in the United States. It begins with a clip of a sermon ...

Mullally visit marks 1,350th anniversary of the foundation of the diocese

THE next Dean of Bangor will be the Revd Nia Catrin Williams, it was announced on Monday. Ms Williams is currently a Ministry Area Leader in the diocese, serving Bro Beuno Sant Uwch Gwyrfai. She returned to the diocese this year after serving for ...

“WHAT we are seeking is not a programme for a party, but a way of life, for a people,” wrote T. S. Eliot in The Idea of a Christian Society (1939). Political extremism, every bit as much as tolerant common life, is not merely a matter of ideas, bu...

THE Consistory Court of the diocese of Southwell & Nottingham has refused to grant the vicar and churchwardens of St Mary’s, Radcliffe-on-Trent, a faculty for the purchase and storage of a “portable immersion baptistery”, to be used for “singl...

Isaiah 35.3-6 or Acts 16.6-12a; Psalm 147.1-7; 2 Timothy 4.5-17; Luke 10.1-9 “EAT and drink whatever they provide,” Jesus says. Hospitality is a frequent topic in the Bible: here, the focus is on being a good guest rather than a good host. The hea...

Jayne Manfredi reviews a compelling new take on Steinbeck’s tale of good and evil, before turning to a delightfully silly vampire comedy with bite

Gerry Lynch on a century of broadcasting sacred music, and how the beauty of choral worship can lead the lost towards faith

A NEW office of religious affairs is being set up by the US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, to which all chaplains in the US military must report. The creation of the new office was announced in a speech last week. The office will offer “first-cl...

WHEN reading a lengthy autobiography, it easy to feel like an eavesdropper on someone’s life and then to take sides for or against the author. This could be you — or perhaps not. This autobiography is irresistible for me, since Professor John Lenn...

FIFTEEN years ago, as we approached the 400th anniversary of the publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible, I was asked to give a paper on Lancelot Andrewes, the finest preacher of his day, and the man whom King James had put in charge of...

Across 1 Singular hair fastener (4) 3 Guilt Clair engineered regarding public worship (10) 9 Therefore cover us in a stroke (7) 11 Potter, say, hit nine: that’s about right (7) 12 24 hours before a fast start? (6,7) 14 Inventors pla...

THE dangers of conflating God’s voice with a human one and letting prayer ministry turn into a form of control, even unintentionally, are among the issues explored in a new guide to prayer from the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission. T...

THE consecration of Canon Tim Lomax to be Suffragan Bishop of Warwick, in the diocese of Coventry, which was previously scheduled for 6 November, has been postponed after complaints. A statement from the diocese, issued on Monday, said that the de...

CHRISTIAN charities have urged the European Union to “lead by example” during an upcoming United Nations climate summit in Turkey and push for an end to the use of fossil fuels and fairer treatment of vulnerable communities. “This summer, Europe h...

GRANDPARENTS separated by distance from their families, juggling caring responsibilities for both grandchildren and ageing parents, or wondering how to pass on faith when their own children have left the Church are among those being supported by a...

MANY readers will have seen the photographs of jubilant prisoners spilling on to the streets last week, the latest beneficiaries of the Government’s early-release scheme. There was footage of offenders punching the air and proclaiming their thanks...

CHELMSFORD By the Bishop in her cathedral on 13 September:Deacons: Penny-Anne Adams (Heybridge with Langford, and All Saints with St Peter, Maldon); Melissa Clark (St Andrew’s, Leytonstone); Michelle Cottis (Great Dunmow and Barnston); Angela Edis...

TONY HORSFALL’s Footsteps of Faith is more testimony than autobiography. He tells the story of his Christian life, at each stage revealing what he has learned about discipleship and leadership, with prompts for thinking about our own journey of fa...

COULD anyone have rescued the Church of England? I have been arguing with another journalist who seems to believe that the collapse of the past 30 years was due to poor leadership; but this is like blaming a ship that founders on the lookout at th...

THE last of my previous articles in this series (Theology Matters, 25 September) built on the unexpected claim that the burial of Christ — and its clause in the Creeds — is full of the Good News. Finding the gospel in the resurrection of Christ an...

BRITISH people who espouse Christian nationalist views are a “deeply anxious” group, and conversations with them should explore “what is it that bothers them so much about the state of Britain today”, a new report from Theos suggests. In the repor...

SIGNOR Mussolini’s speech at Perugia on Tuesday has considerable significance. He began the day by lecturing at the Free University for Foreign Students on the rise of Roman sea-power. Rome was the mistress of the Mediterranean. It is the dream of...