Hallowed Westminster

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 12

Hallowed Westminster

Nine hundred years span the main stream of English history. Throughout that period Westminster Abbey has been a symbol of those unities which are commonly thought to characterise and distinguish the British way of life, notably the ancient association of Church and State. Birthday celebrations for the Abbey, which began last week with Royal participation in service and ceremonial in the chapel of its founder, Edward the Confessor, will continue throughout this year. For that reason this noble London church—for, in spite of centuries of social and political change, it remains a church wherein are held regular daily services—will more than ever this year be a focal point of interest for visitors from Commonwealth countries and, indeed, from every country where there is appreciation of the deep-rooted significances of British tradition. For the British people, perhaps Londoners especially, the Abbey emphasises above all else a spiritual continuity that has been unaffected by normal evolutionary processes. The Confessor’s church, which replaced a primitive Benedictine establishment standing on what was once an island in the Thames, is scarcely now discoverable in the Abbey. Henry 111 left only a portion of the original when, in 1245, he began the construction of the present abbey church. The “ architect ”, Master Henry, introduced French features into his design so successfully that the result later won praise as “ a “ great French thought expressed in excellent “ English ”. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought other elaborations, chief among them the present nave. Henry VII added his chapel, and the west towers were completed about the middle of the eighteenth century by Hawksmoor, using a modification of Wren’s earlier design. Throughout the centuries Westminster Abbey has known a processional pageantry almost without precedent, it may be supposed, in human experience. When the Confessor died and was buried in his newly consecrated church, his successor, William of Normandy, chose it as the place for his coronation. William’s recognition of the reverence in which Edward was held founded a tradition, for our Kings and Queens went thereafter to the Abbey for dedication and crowning.

During this commemorative year there will be many occasions for ceremony and thanksgiving in the Abbey which, down the years, has become a crowded burial-place of the great in all walks of English life. Poets, soldiers, sailors, actors, statesmen, musicians have, among its quiet stones, their memorial places. Men and women of all faiths will visit London to keep, in their separate and special ways, the Abbey’s notable anniversary—among them, most appropriately, some members of the Benedictine communion, who will meet there in March. At varying times during 1966, then, representatives of all segments of Christendom will be participants in the many-sided Abbey celebrations—religious services, lectures, music and poetry, and even a fair, to be sited in Dean’s Yard, as a particular evocation of the past. The search for a wider basis of Christian unity can scarcely fail to be assisted by the ecumenical spirit that these unique occasions will engender.