Birmingham’s Orthodox Cathedral

At The Cathedral Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God and St. Andrew, or more simply, Birmingham’s Orthodox Cathedral, I called this winter. A little distance from the centre, it was conveniently left open, and the resident priest was pleasant enough, awaiting some young couple to arrange a baptism for their child. Although not a purpose-built temple of Orthodoxy, the insides were suitably gaudy, the height allowing a sense of grandeur and the decorated brickwork lending additional drama. Icons were everywhere, and any worshipper too bored to concentrate and too principled to snooze would find plenty to occupy him.

Orthodoxy has no deep historical roots in this land, its contemporary churches and cathedrals located in areas of immigration, notwithstanding its attraction to young native males who find wokeism and the growing Islamisation equally repellent. I therefore wondered to whom or to what this lofty cathedral originally belonged. The answer is the Catholic Apostolics, a peculiar denomination founded by a man whose home church and statue I went to visit up in Scotland. Bizarrely, the denomination he formed combined a proto-charismatic movement with a rather ritualistic, ‘High Church’ style of worship, a stark contrast with his native Presbyterianism.

Transitioning from Catholic Apostolic to Greek Orthodox may not have been a drastic transformation for this building and its style of worship. Both movements enjoy ritualistic, sensual worship, and both believe in extra-biblical revelations, in the sense that the Orthodox Church claims that its own traditions have an equal weight with God’s word. Wrong, of course, but in keeping with its Midlands’ cathedral’s original spirit.

As I looked beyond the rather flashy chandelier, I noted the gloom and darkness of the building’s upper reaches. I find that those churches and denominations with the most ostentatious styles shed little light on heaven, while those in humbler premises, which only rely on the scriptures, see rather more of the world to come.

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20

A. D