Bristol Cathedral

Bristol Cathedral is a fine old building, once an abbey, but elevated to cathedral-status at the sixteenth-century Reformation by Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. There is something wonderfully timeless about its decorated gothic architecture and the vast, chasm-like spaces within. The Cathedral regularly hosts Islamic ‘Grand Iftar’ events which mark the end of Ramadan. The Very Rev Neil Patterson, the appropriately named Vice Dean of the cathedral, said it was part of their mission to open up the building to the people of Bristol:

“We are excited to welcome our brothers and sisters of all faiths and backgrounds to come and enjoy a meal in our building.”

The first Bishop of Bristol, whose name, Paul Bush, sounds more like a Sixties rocker than a Tudor prelate, lies buried there. Although hardly a radical Protestant, he was Deprived under Bloody Mary by Bishops Gardiner and Bonner for having married. Although neighbouring tombs shows their occupants in all their episcopal finery, replete with mitres and croziers, Bush’s displays him as a corpse, a withered wreck using his old bejewelled mitre as a less-than-comfortable-looking pillow.

Beneath the allure of popular religious sentiment -be it the resurgent Romanism of Bloody Mary’s day, or the interfaith flummery of our own- away from the smiles, the smooth words and the worldly applause, there is nothing but death and decay. Those who would exchange Zion for Gerizim have moved away from God, but He has not gone with them. 

“You offer defiled food on My altar,
But say,
‘In what way have we defiled You?’
By saying,
‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’
And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice,
Is it not evil?
And when you offer the lame and sick,
Is it not evil?

Malachi 1:7-8a, NKJV