Chairman's Newsletter - December 2024

December 2024
 

You are invited to our next

FRIENDLY MONDAY
on 16^th December 2024
in the John Laing Centre
Welcome coffee from 10.30am onwards
Finish by 12 noon
Come and discover why and how the Coventry Cathedral Tapestry was made; why it was designed by Graham Sutherland; why Basil Spence specified a tapestry; and, why it came to be woven in France.
 

 

 

Darkness can be defined as how we are separated from God by the choices we make and the impact they have on ourselves and on others.   The light of Jesus, coming into the world at Christmas, dispels this darkness.

 
Here is a selection of the Christmas Events taking place in Coventry Cathedral.   The full Christmas programme is available on the Cathedral website.
15 December 2024 at 6:00 pm
Blue Christmas
A service for those who find this time of year difficult, and those who wish to pray for them.
 16th December 2024 at 7pm
Handel's MESSIAH by Candlelight
Coventry Cathedral Chorus directed by Rachel Mahon
19 December 2024 at 5:30pm to 6:00pm
Britten's Ceremony of Carols
The Cathedral Choristers and harpist Cecily Beer perform Britten’s much loved Christmas gem.   This meditative performance begins at 5:30pm. Tickets (£5-10) can be purchased on the Cathedral website.
 22 December 2024 at 5:00 pm
Carols by Candlelight
Our traditional carol service lit by hundreds of candles in the Cathedral.
 24 December 2024 at 2:30 pm
Carols for Families
A fun, interactive retelling of the Christmas story with singalong carols. A lighter take on Christmas.   Jazzy Christmas jumpers are encouraged!
24 December 2024 at 7pm
Form Of A Servant
Carols and readings that encourage meditation on the meaning of Christmas.

25th December 2024 at 10.30am
Christmas Day Eucharist

  

The Cathedral Girls Choir looked down from the fortifications of the village church at VISCRI in Transylvania, Romania on their recent singing tour.
 

King Charles acknowledges

Cathedral Girls Choir
 

THE COVENTRY CATHEDRAL Girls Choir visited the village of Viscri as part of its recent tour of Transylvania, Romania.   The village is dominated by a magnificent fortified church, and is the village nearest to the Romanian residence of King Charles III, a place to which the King is known to escape from time to time for privacy and relaxation.
     King Charles was told in advance of the Choir’s visit and on returning to the UK the Choir received a letter from Buckingham Palace to say that he was “touched to hear about the visit to Romania by the girl choristers of Coventry Cathedral.”
     The area’s history is fascinating.   The King of Hungary ruled that region in the Middle Ages, and in order to settle a wild and under-populated area he invited and encouraged people from other lands to live there.   The Protestant Lutheran newcomers built walls around their churches so that the village residents could find sanctuary in the event of attack by gangs of lawless robbers.   Today there are 150 fortified churches that survive, though their village populations have often shrunk in number making maintenance of these historic buildings very difficult. 
     The Cathedral Girls Choir walked around the fortifications at Viscri Church and spent time there rehearsing for a concert that evening in the fortified church at Dacia, the neighbouring village.   Coventry’s link with Dacia is through the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN).   The CCN links people and places around the world that wish to share in the Cathedral's Ministry of Reconciliation.
     In Dacia there is a project led by Frank Roth from Dresden who was sponsored by the German CCN (photo left).   His work is to foster community growth in an extremely poor village, and amongst other things to provide the poorer village children with daily schooling and a meal.   Since 2007 the work with young people has been helped by donations from members of the Coventry Cathedral congregation made through Jane Williams and the SHARE charity.
     Frank’s daughter, Cora, did a wonderful job organising the accommodation and eating arrangements for the Cathedral Girls, who stayed in a hostel that Frank created in the original Dacia Parish Rooms.
 

      The concert in the fortified church at Dacia (photo above) included a selection of folk songs by the village children as well as the Cathedral Girls Choir programme.   Few of the village children speak English, but music was found to cross all language barriers.   At the end of the concert all those taking part posed for the photo below.
  

     We rarely see horse and cart on UK roads, but they are a common sight in the country districts of Romania.   On a walk through Dacia village one of the chaperones who speaks Romanian asked a local farmer who agreed to take the girls on a brief tour of the village in his cart. (photo below)   
Approximately 40% of the Romanian population live in countryside villages rather than cities, and many of those villages are not on mains water but rely on wells for their water supply, as happens in Dacia.   
On their tour of Transylvania the girl choristers certainly experienced quite a different way of life from the UK - even within the boundaries of Europe.
        


         
          
            
At its meeting on the 28th November 2024 the Friends Council co-opted to its membership Jim Newton, Jane Williams and Mandy Wooltorton.

HELP NEEDED.   Is there a member willing to help the Membership Secretary to maintain the Friends Membership List?   Jim Newton is the Membership Secretary.  

         
 

   I SWEAR THAT I will faithfully observe the Statutes and laudable customs of the Cathedral Church of St Michael, Coventry; and that I will render loyal and faithful service to the Dean and his successors and to my colleagues; and that with them I will, to the best of my powers, support the ministry of the Cathedral Church.                 God help me to do this.
 

     Bishop Ruth Worsley, Acting Bishop of Coventry, administered the oaths and declarations by the Honorary Canons Designate in the Chapel of Industry before their Service of Collation and Installation on 13^th November.
     The new Canons are Rev Richard Hibbert (Vicar of Holy Trinity, Coventry), Rev Claire McArthur (Rector of St Michael’s Stoke, Coventry) and Jo King (Warden of Lay Readers).
     They each declared their belief in The Bible and in the historic formularies of the Church of England.   They each swore their allegiance to King Charles, and their obedience to the Bishop of Coventry.  Finally, they each swore fidelity to the Cathedral in the wording at the head of this article.
     The oaths and declarations by Honorary Canons Designate are formalities that precede every Installation Service.   In recent years their administration has taken place immediately before the Installation Service in the Chapel of Industry.   In the past I have witnessed oaths and declarations made in the Cathedral Lecture Hall (no longer there), the Navy Room, and at my own Installation Service more publicly on the steps of the Chapel of Unity.
 

CHARLES

BROWN

   
     I am sad to report the death of Charles Brown who was Coventry Cathedral Architect in the 1980s and 90s.   He died on 6^th October 2024 and a memorial service was held at St Mary’s Church, Warwick - a building for which he was also responsible as Architect for many years.   His office base was in Warwick and he was Consultant Architect to Warwickshire and Coventry Historic Churches Trust.
     Charles was the Cathedral Architect at Lichfield (1976-1983) and the Surveyor of the Fabric of York Minster (1977-1994).   He won great praise for his work in supervising the restoration work that was needed in York after the South Transept caught fire following a lightning strike in 1984.   He was a trustee of York Glaziers Trust, which worked on Coventry Cathedral’s medieval glass.   When he retired from York he took responsibility for St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

            

 

Old Friends meet up in New Zealand

TED and KATIE HISCOCKS (on the left above) on a family visit to New Zealand in October enjoyed an evening in Wellington, the capital, with Paul and Barbara Oestreicher.   Paul was the International Director of Coventry Cathedral from 1986 to 1997.     Whilst in Wellington Ted and Katie visited the National Cathedral of St Paul which has a number of links with Coventry.   There is a Cross of Nails, chairs that echo the Coventry design and the porch is adorned with angel engravings created by John Hutton, a New Zealander by birth and creator of Coventry’s west screen. (photo right)

       The Rt Revd Sophie Jelley has been named the first female Bishop of Coventry in succession to Bishop Christopher Cocksworth.
         She is currently the Bishop of Doncaster and will take up her new post in the spring, following an installation service in Coventry Cathedral.