St Giles Church, Oxford

Parish News

Christmas procession at Lalibela, Ethiopia

March 2017 Free

(but donations gratefully received)
 PARISH CONTACTS
Vicar
Canon Andrew Bunch, vicar@churchwalk.eclipse.co.uk
The Vicarage, Church Walk, Oxford OX2 6LY 01865 510460
Associate Priest
Revd Tom Albinson tomalbinson@gmail.com
01865 515409 or 07426 948251
Lay Minister
David Longrigg LLM, 23 Norham Rd, Oxford OX2 6SF 01865 557879
Benefice Manager
Henrietta Mountain-Ritter beneficemanager@st-giles-church.org
10 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HT 01865 512319
Churchwardens
Maureen Chu 01865 726011 maureenchu1@gmail.com
Joanne Russell 01865 760788 joannerussell1@me.com
Treasurer
Rod Nixon treasurer@st-giles-church.org
Organist
Andrew Patterson andrew.patterson@finemusic.co.uk
Choir Director
Nicholas Prozzillo choir@st-giles-church.org
PCC Secretary
Sarah-Jane White sarah-jane.white@ihs.ox.ac.uk
Captain of the Bells
John Pusey johnguypusey@hotmail.com
Church Flowers

Benefice Secretary/Magazine Editor

Anne Dutton secretary@st-giles-church.org
Twitter @StGilesOxford
Instagram stgileschurch
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ChurchStGilesOxford
Website www.st-giles-church.org

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 Contents
My First Year at St Giles Tom Albinson Page 4
Visit to Ethiopia John Pusey Page 4
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer Page 7
Planned Giving Update Tim Myatt Page 8
Time to Reconsider Reformation Martyrs Jonathan
Page 9
Luxmoore (reprinted from Church Times)
March Discussion Groups Page 10
The King of Instruments Nicholas Prozzillo Page 11
Dates for your Diary March-April 2017 Page 16

We are most grateful for any news/views etc. Please send items for
inclusion in the April newsletter to secretary@st-giles-church.org by
Monday 20th March 2017.
__________________________________________________________

THREE MESSAGES OF THANKS FROM THE CHURCHWARDENS

Annual Christmas Clothing Collection for The Gatehouse
This is organised by Margaret Williamson; we would like to thank her,
and pay tribute to her hard work and dedication to this effort.
Christmas Toy Collection for the Salvation Army
This is organised by Melanie Florence, Alison Sylvester, and Jane
Finnerty. The congregation have supported this, and Jane says that a
good number of gift boxes were made up in this scheme.
Monthly Sandwich donation to the Gatehouse
Many thanks to all those who contribute to this scheme - with special
gratitude to Alison Birchall (Church Steward) for her delivery service!

ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICES - 1st MARCH 2017

12:30 pm Eucharist and Ashing at St Giles Church
8:00 pm Sung Eucharist and Ashing at St Margarets Church

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 MY FIRST YEAR AT ST GILES
IT IS now just over a year since I became
part of the family that is St Giles Church. I
use the word family because of the
warmth with which I have been welcomed.
In the past year I seen St Giles living out
its part in Gods mission here in Oxford. I
admire the prayerful nature of the St Giles
community. The communal experience of
daily evening prayer has been a blessing. I
have been struck by the richness of life at
St Giles and the diversity of visitors that we welcome. This community
offers Hospitality to all as if they were Christ, and this spirit of
hospitality is something we at St Giles should treasure in our changing
world.
Change is a theme that I have experienced since moving into the
Benefice. Personally, I have experienced three major changes: getting
married, moving house, and starting a new role. At St Giles we are
changing as we embark on Project 900. I am excited by the vision, and
look forward to taking part in discerning Gods call for all as we seek to
show the Love of Christ in all that we do. The year has flown by and I
am aware that getting to know each other takes time. I am always
happy to meet up for a drink and a chat: just drop me an email.
Tom Albinson
__________________________________________________________
VISIT TO ETHIOPIA, JANUARY 2017
IN last months issue, I described my visit to a wedding in Kenya at the
end of December. Having planned that trip, I wanted to stay longer
away from the English winter, and remembered a postcard sent home
by a cousin, showing a rock-hewn church in Ethiopia formed, below
ground level, not by building (i.e. putting pieces of stone on top of each
other), but by excavating a trench, leaving a central block isolated, and
then hollowing out the interior of the block, to arrive at something
shaped like a church, but monolithic, made of the remaining
continuous rock still in its original position.

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 I found a tour, on dates which suited me, which would visit three
historic capitals in northern Ethiopia: Axum, which from about 1000 BC
had ruled an empire reaching
across the Red Sea to the Yemen;
Lalibela, named after a king who
in about 1100 AD tried to
construct an alternative to
Jerusalem as a destination for
pilgrims, and who designed at
least some of the rock-hewn
churches, giving them names such
as Bethlehem and Golgotha; and
Gonder, where a series of emperors in the 17th Century had each built a
new castle next to those of his predecessors, in a style possibly
influenced by the Portuguese.
Ethiopian tradition is that the biblical Queen of Sheba came from
their side of the Red Sea, visited King Solomon in Jerusalem, came
home pregnant by him, and bore a son who later became the Emperor
Menelik I. As a youth, he in turn visited Jerusalem, stayed there for
several years to study, and returned bringing a retinue of scholars, and
many Hebrew manuscripts - together with the original Ark of the
Covenant, which is said still to survive in a specially built chapel in
Axum, guarded by a monk who is the only person allowed to see it;
every Ethiopian church however has a replica, a tabot, but even those
are always kept covered by embroidered cloths.
The tradition also claims that, through the homeward-travelling
Ethiopian eunuch baptised by St Philip, the news of the Christian gospel
reached Ethiopia before any other country outside the Holy Land
(before St Paul set off for his missionary journeys in Asia Minor); and
also, that an Ethiopian monarch had made Ethiopia a Christian state a
generation before the Emperor Constantine did the same for the
Roman Empire. And Christianity has survived in Ethiopia - in spite of
being cut off from the rest of Christendom for several centuries
following the expansion of Islam, when rumours of its existence
generated the legend of John the Emperor-Priest - Prester John.
The western churches teach that Christ had two natures, both
divine and human, and they describe the Ethiopian Orthodox church

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(together with the Coptic and Armenian churches), as Monophysites:
believers that Christ had a single, divine, nature. The Ethiopians them-
selves however prefer the more nuanced term Tewahidros, meaning
something like blended belief
in a single nature, but com-
bining features of both kinds.
The Ethiopians follow the
old Julian calendar, so my tour
had been planned to include
their Christmas, on 7th-8th
January, when I attended the
beginning of an all-night service
in the largest of Lalibelas rock-
hewn churches, and also the following celebrations in daylight next
morning, including two robed choirs, one on the higher part of the
ground overlooking the church, representing angels, and another group
lower down, representing shepherds, all singing Glory to God.
I worked out that, by staying a few days longer, on my own, in
Addis Ababa, I would also be able to see the Epiphany celebrations, on
19th-20th January, which they combine with celebration of the Baptism
of Christ, and therefore include a lot of water being sprayed and
splashed about, to cleanse the worshippers from their sins a sort of
re-baptism. The tabots from
neighbouring churches are
brought in procession to a central
point, where there is a
celebration led by the Patriarch
and the local bishop, and
including dozens of priests,
dancers and singers, all wearing
brightly coloured and wonderfully
embroidered silken robes, and
carrying coloured parasols, and elaborately decorated crosses in silver,
bronze and wood. I brought home two of the coloured parasols
(remarkably cheap, but rather awkward to carry), and they can perhaps
be used next time we go out in procession to Beat the Bounds.
John Pusey

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 THOMAS CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, MARTYR
Born: Aslockton, 2nd July 1489. Died: Oxford, 21st March 1556
FROM an unspectacular Cambridge academic career, Cranmer was
recruited for diplomatic service in 1527. Two years later he joined the
team working to annul Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533 and duly pronounced
the marriage annulled. By now a convinced Church reformer, he
married in 1532, while clerical marriage was still illegal in England. He
worked closely with Thomas Cromwell
to further reformation, but survived
Henrys final, unpredictable years to
become a chief architect of Edwardian
religious change, constructing two
editions of The Book of Common
Prayer, in 1549 and 1552, the Ordinal
in 1550, and the original version of the
later 39 Articles.
Cranmer acquiesced in the
attempt to make Lady Jane Grey
Queen of England. Queen Marys
regime convicted him of treason in
1553 and of heresy in 1554.
Demoralised by imprisonment, he signed six recantations, but was still
condemned to the stake at Oxford. Struggling with his conscience, he
made a final, bold statement of Protestant faith. Perhaps too fair-
minded and cautious to be a ready-made hero in Reformation disputes,
he was an impressively learned scholar, and his genius for formal prose
has left a lasting mark on Anglican liturgy.
From: Exciting Holiness, Edited by Brother Tristram SSF, 1997
__________________________________________________________
CAN YOU OFFER SOMEONE A LIFT TO CHURCH?
If you travel in to St Giles by car you may be able to help. Many people
rely on buses or walk. When the weather is bad or buses arent
running - at Christmas, for example - some of the congregation cant
get to a service. If youd be prepared to join a list of volunteers happy
to help out from time to time, please contact Jane Finnerty on 01865
553304, or speak to her at church.

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 PLANNED GIVING APPEAL UPDATE
THERE has been a great response to the Planned Giving Appeal! We
are now tantalisingly close to our target of raising 15,000 to cover our
increase in the Parish Share; salary for Tom, our new Associate Priest;
and increases to our day-to-day running expenses.
Thank you to all those who have set up or increased their
Planned Giving Direct Debits. The funds you have given have helped us
to deliver our ministry and mission to the Oxford community, and we
really appreciate your
commitment, help, and support.
With the exciting launch of
Project 900 we will shortly close
the Planned Giving Appeal. If you
could consider joining the appeal,
or if you are an existing donor,
possibly pledge just a little more
each month, this will help us
achieve our appeal goal. Our
target was 15,000. We have
managed to raise an amazing
14,050 and are only 950 short!
If you would like any further information about the Stewardship
and Planned Giving campaign, or a Standing Order form, please do
contact the Vicar or the Treasurer.
Tim Myatt
__________________________________________________________
MUSIC AT ST GILES SPRING/SUMMER 2017 IN AID OF PROJECT 900
Chamber Concert
Saturday 4th March, 7:30 pm
Anna Shackleton (soprano); Akino Kitihara (piano);
Philip Shirtcliff (clarinet).
Music by Spohr, Brahms and de Falla
Admission: 10/8 concessions/5 students

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 TIME TO RECONSIDER REFORMATION MARTYRS (Part 1)
WHEN Pope Francis was in Sweden in the autumn, helping to prepare
for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, he spoke of the
ecumenism of blood shared by Churches from past persecutions.
Such words could be taken to heart in Britain, as we reflect on the
mutual sufferings inflicted here, too, by the Reformation. As Brexit
forces us to reflect on our place in the world, and what unites us, it will
be worth looking at the sectarian habits that, despite a century of
ecumenical co-operation, still affect us.
Since the 1970s, Anglican and Roman Catholic historians have
made strides towards a more balanced view of the Reformation.
Scholars such as Christopher Haigh and Eamon Duffy have questioned
the motives behind the embrace of Protestantism in England, and how
far it reflected popular feeling. They have been challenged by the likes
of Diarmaid MacCulloch, who has sought to demonstrate why Protes-
tantism naturally belonged here. Questions have been raised about
the Anglican perspectives that traditionally dominate the teaching of
English history. We know now that the 1559 Settlement was by no
means the end of the Reformation process here, and that the destruct-
tion of monasteries, libraries, and artworks was indeed calamitous.
Protestants and Catholics both inflicted and suffered appalling
cruelties, and few today would dare to justify the violent measures
used. The truth in all its complexity has begun to be told more openly.
At a practical local level, however, we still seem to be lagging
behind, often through a weak knowledge of facts and a poor grasp of
their implications. This is graphically illustrated in Oxford, which bore
the brunt of Reformation harshness. The university had had a mission to
train priests and teachers for the Catholic Church. But it became
Protestant during the reign of Henry VIII, excluding other confessions
until the 19th century. This helps to explain why the only Reformation
victims officially commemorated in the city were the Protestant bishops
Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer,
who were burned at the stake here in 1555 and 1556, during the brief
reimposition of Catholicism under Mary I. The site of their deaths is
famously marked by a cross of slabs on Broad Street, and an ornate
memorial unveiled in 1841 during opposition to the Oxford Movement.

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 However, while Oxford Universitys one-time Chancellor, St
Thomas More (1478-1536), is revered by all Churches, comparatively
little attention has been paid to dozens of other Roman Catholic
martyrs connected with the city some of whom, such as St Edmund
Campion (1540-81), a Fellow of St Johns College, were prominent at
the time.
The lingering anti-Catholic legacy in Oxford is understandable.
Unlike Cambridge, it remained a hotbed of dissident Catholicism
throughout the 16th century. In 1549, when attempts were made to
impose the Book of Common Prayer, it was approved by only two of
the 13 heads of colleges, and sparked a rebellion throughout the
county, during which the Vicar of nearby Chipping Norton, Henry Joyes,
was hanged in chains from his own church tower. A decade later,
when royal commissioners visited Oxford to impose Elizabeth Is Acts of
Uniformity and Supremacy, local Catholics were said to have been
imprisoned in great numbers. And when Roman Catholic practices
were declared illegal and treasonable after the defeat of the Spanish
Armada in 1588, the Thames Valley became a hotbed of recusancy.
Oxfords oldest inn, The Mitre, which dates from the 13th
century, hosted secret Masses in its vaults; and in 1605, the
Gunpowder Plot conspirators were found to have met in the Catherine
Wheel Inn, another Roman Catholic safe house. While the university
remained Royalist when civil war erupted in the 1640s, serving as
headquarters for Charles I, the rest of the city backed Cromwells
Parliamentarians; and when it was captured, books, pictures, and other
objects associated with recusancy were burned in the streets. Even
after the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act, Oxford students were still
required to be practising Anglicans until the 1890s, when the Jesuit
Campion Hall and Benedictine St Benets were founded, and Roman
Catholics allowed to enrol. (To be continued next month.)

David Longrigg writes:

I thought this article by Jonathan Luxmore, which appeared in the
Church Times of 6/1/2017, would be of interest to the congregation of
St Giles, and the Church Times have kindly agreed to my request that it
can be reprinted. To subscribe to the Church Times, please visit
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

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 DISCUSSION GROUPS
IN MARCH, we are planning some discussion groups for the people
associated with St Giles. The intention is to give people a chance to
talk through some of the significant events in their lives. There are to
be a number of different groups and the leaders will be:
Sin Grnlie (sian.gronlie@st-annes.ox.ac.uk)
Hannah Smith (hannah.smith123@outlook.com)
Tim Myatt (tim.myatt@wolfson.oxon.org)
David Longrigg (djflong@icloud.com)
Tom Albinson (tomalbinson@gmail.com)
Please contact one of them if you would like to join their group. This
should be a great opportunity to get to know each other better and
share how our faith affects the way we view life and the issues we face.
__________________________________________________________
THE KING OF INSTRUMENTS: A QUICK GLANCE AT ORGAN HISTORY
WITH a documented history dating back at least a thousand years, the
organ has caught the attention of journalists, saints, musicians, poets,
theologians, painters, and
many others, inviting diverse
interpretations. John
Drydens wondrous machine
was honoured by W A
Mozart, with the title, King of
Instruments; and whatever
the precise meaning of the
often quoted Psalm 150
laudate eum in chordis et organo, the organs presence in the
ecclesiastical environment was given authority by members of the
Church at various times.
The organ, more than any other instrument, has always borne
extra-musical meanings. The 17th-century Jesuit scholar Athanasius
Kircher used the organs stops as a metaphor for the six days of
creation, depicting the Harmonia nascentis mundi, whilst Arnolt
Schlicks Spiegel der Orgel-macher und Organisten of 1511 (Mirror of
Organ-builders and Organists) referred to the organs ability to sing
Gods praises and refresh the human spirit.

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 The instruments mechanics and engineering could display a
cultures ingenuity and carry political overtones. For example, in 757 a
gift from Constantine V,
termed organum, was sent to
the Carolingian court, perhaps
to show Byzantines cultural-
technological advances.
Furthermore, Elizabeth Is gift
of an organ to Murat III, Sultan
of Turkey, in 1599 appropriated
its emblematic puissance for
the struggle to establish symbolical, geo-political capital (one State
Paper enthused, a great and curious present [is] going to the Grand
Turk which no doubt wilbe [sic] much talked of, and be very scandalous
among other nations).
The organ, so often elevated to such supreme status, has been at
the centre of various battlefields, both metaphorical and literal. For
instance, organs were associated with Rome during the English Refor-
mations, and were to be destroyed. A Bill to silence all church organs
in 1586 was defeated by just one vote. Despite a minor revival in the
following century, the Puritan regime during the Commonwealth
period 1640-9 was suspicious of the instrument, and on 9th May 1644
Parliament enacted that all Organs and the Frames or Cases wherein
they stand [] shall be taken
away and utterly defaced, and
none hereafter set up in their
places. Thus at Westminster
Abbey, Cromwells soldiers
pawned the pipes at several
alehouses for pots of ale; at
Peterborough a regiment threw
the organ to the ground,
where they stamped and trampled it to pieces in a strange, furious and
frantic zeal. And there is much more.
In the space of 250 years from its almost complete destruction
by the Puritans, however, the English organ had grown to be a much-
valued participant in British life. By the beginning of the 20th century,

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political, economic, technological, musical, social, cultural, and religious
developments created an instrument with a very strong national
identity. As the organ was frequently heard within an ecclesiastical
environment, the established Church of England, the Anglican Church,
did much to give the organ an
identity. This had so
developed that The Dictionary
of Organs and Organists in
1912 commented that the
English organ of today is
probably all round superior
or at any rate equal to that of
any other country.
In many ways the English organ was victim of its own success
amongst congregations and audiences at Victorian organ recitals. For
some, the advances of the previous century had created an organ so
far removed from its 17th-century manifestations what was
considered to be the organs golden age that its putative claim to be
a musical instrument was questioned. Geraint Jones (1917-1998), an
influential teacher and a brilliant organist
of the younger generation (The Times),
was one significant musician who came to
levy heavy charges against the English
organ known to him: All our organs are a
medley of sounds he stated in The Musical
Times under the heading Is the organ a
musical instrument?.
Such pronouncements of resent-
ment were rife and not just in the 1950s:
they also peppered the discourse of rank-
and-file musicians. Whether or not
commentators expressed nuanced
opinions, many outlined the demerits of the English organ. As early as
1915, Arnold Dolmetsch, a significant figure in the revival of earlier
styles of music, argued that the organ had been turned into a machine,
quite incapable of beautiful tones. In an article appearing in The
Listener in 1938, Martin du Pr Cooper, a music critic of high repute,

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asked the same question which Jones was to pose almost twenty years
later: Is the Organ a Musical Instrument?
And so the English organ suffered an identity crisis in the 1950s.
Growing appreciation of early music and organs had shattered the
image of an established
national instrument, provoking
a schism in the organ world.
Whilst defenders of this type of
instrument insisted that by the
beginning of the twentieth
century the notion of
enlightened selectivity had
created the supreme artistry of
the English organ, critics opposed this, stating that perfection had
actually been achieved 200 years before but not in England. Reform
discarded an imperial English organ in favour of an instrument, the
classical organ, which provided a more suitable medium for the organs
repertory, as opposed to transcriptions of instrumental and vocal
repertoire. This movement gathered momentum in England with the
completion in 1954 of the organ at Londons Royal Festival Hall, an
instrument whose controversial design was inspired by contemporary
Continental practices. It was the installation of the organ by the Danish
firm Frobenius in The Queens College, Oxford in 1965, however, that
signalled the replacement of the old model with something new.
Few instruments can claim a status which enables them to be
praised or mercilessly attacked as a result of storms of contention.
Organ history is fascinating. But so is learning to play this instrument
which comes in many different shapes and sizes! There is a vast
literature of musical works: from J S Bachs adventurous harmonies, to
Ecclesiastical Tangos, to Hungarian Rock. A growing number of St Giles
choristers are learning the organ, and there have been some splendid
examination results in recent months. Let us encourage our musical
children to become the church musicians of the future, able to recruit
singers, administer, conduct and inspire choirs, accompany divine
worship, teach, perform concerts, and a whole host of other skills.
Organ tuition is available to keen pianists: contact Dr Nicholas
Prozzillo, nicholas.prozzillo@lmh.ox.ac.uk for further information.

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 DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Wednesday 1st March ASH WEDNESDAY

12:30 pm Eucharist and Ashing at St Giles
8:00 pm Sung Eucharist & Ashing at St Margarets
Thursday 2nd March St Chad, Bishop of Lichfield, 672
12:30 pm Old Age, Dementia and Death -
Speaker: Brian Woolnough at St Giles
9:30 pm Cocoa and Compline at St Giles
Friday 3rd March
12 noon-1:00 pm Womens World Day of Prayer
at Friends Meeting House, 43 St Giles
Saturday 4th March
7:30 pm Chamber Concert at St Giles
th
Sunday 5 March 1st Sunday of Lent
7:45 pm Priest & Pints at The Anchor, Polstead Rd
Wednesday 8th March Edward King, Bishop, 1910
10:00 am-4:00 pm Reflections in Lent at St Giles
Thursday 9th March
9:30 pm Cocoa and Compline at St Giles
Sunday 12th March 2nd Sunday of Lent
Sunday 19th March 3rd Sunday of Lent
Saturday 25th March The Annunciation of Our Lord to the BVM
9:00 am Eucharist at St Margarets
Sunday 26th March 4th Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday)
10:30 am Holy Communion,
followed by shared Parish Lunch
Sunday 2nd April 5th Sunday of Lent (Passiontide begins)
Sunday 9th April PALM SUNDAY
9:50 am Blessing of Palms at St Giles
10:30 am Parish Eucharist at St Margarets
6:30 pm Pergolesi Stabat Mater at St Giles

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 WEEKLY SERVICES AT ST GILES
Sunday
8:00 am Holy Communion (BCP)
10:30 am Holy Communion
6:30 pm Evensong (BCP)
Monday
5:30 pm Evening Prayer
Tuesday
5:30 pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday
12:30 pm Eucharist
5:30 pm Evening Prayer
Thursday
5:30 pm Evening Prayer
Friday
1:15 pm Taiz Worship
5:30 pm Evening Prayer
Saturday
5:30 pm Evening Prayer

Sunday Readings at 10:30 am Holy Communion

5th March 2017 (The First Sunday of Lent)

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

12th March (The Second Sunday of Lent)

Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

19th March (The Third Sunday of Lent)

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

26th March (The Fourth Sunday of Lent) (Mothering Sunday)

Exodus 2:1-10; Psalm 34:11-20; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:33-35

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