Kirk Merrington Church

The Church of St John the Evangelist, Kirk Merrington in the County of Durham, had me puzzled. I could not tell if it was a medieval church with a few bits of restoration, or a Victorian church whose builder had made a superb effort to make it look authentic. There were Norman-style corbels but the whole was too tall and some of it was too neat. But not that neat. Truly, Kirk Merrington assaulted my pride, for my abilities were as naught before its imposing walls. Thankfully, my aunt looked it up when we returned home, and found that it was rebuilt in the 1850s, but probably using the earlier, Norman stones and features. Phew. I was not so dumb after all.

Bizarrely, the Scots King, David, along with the Empress Matilda, encouraged one William Cumin to claim the see of Durham, to help prepare and support their own claims in England. Cummin, the self-appointed bishop, appears to have made Kirk Merrington church his citadel, fortifying it into a castle. In 1143, three barons laid siege to it and attacked it ‘with fire’.

The Victorian renovation and rebuilding seem to have been at least as violent as anything offered by the power politics of the Middle Ages. Today, it is a quiet parish church in a remote English county, but it is a place with a colourful and fierce past. I do not imagine its congregation to be very large, but they likely get on with each other much better than their ancestors managed. I was reminded of Psalm 46, one of my favourites of the inspired poems:

God is our hope and strength, and help in troubles, ready to be found. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains fall into the midst of the sea, Though the waters thereof rage and be troubled, and the mountains shake at the surges of the same. Selah.

Yet there is a River, whose stream shall make glad the City of God: even the Sanctuary of the Tabernacles of the most High God is in the midst of it: therefore shall it not be moved: God shall help it very early. When the nations raged, and the kingdoms were moved, God thundered, and the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

Come and behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the world, he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear, and burneth the chariots with fire.

Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the heathen, and I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Any with a frothing, tumultuous past, may come to Christ and find the peace and quietude for which they have always sought. Like this old church, we are battered and broken, rebuilt and restarted, but deep down, it is peace and quiet we seek.