St Alban's Church, Holborn | |
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51°31′10.772″N0°6′38.174″W / 51.51965889°N 0.11060389°W | |
Location | Holborn, London |
Country | England |
Denomination | Church of England |
Churchmanship | Anglo-Catholic |
Website | stalbansholborn |
History | |
Status | Active |
Dedication | St Alban |
Architecture | |
Functional status | Parish church |
Heritage designation | Grade II* listed |
Designated | 1951 |
Architect(s) | William Butterfield |
Style | Neo-Gothic |
Years built | 1861–1862 |
Administration | |
Province | Canterbury |
Diocese | London |
Episcopal area | Edmonton |
Archdeaconry | Hampstead |
Clergy | |
Bishop(s) | Jonathan Baker ( AEO ) |
Vicar(s) | Christopher Smith |
Assistant priest(s) | Ronald Corp |
Curate(s) | Duncan Hegan |
St Alban's Church, Holborn, is a Church of England parish church in Holborn, central London, for a time becoming one of two churches of its parish which retains the name and St Peter's Saffron Hill to serve the mixed-use zone, notable for jewel-setting and for law firms. [1] It has been Grade II* listed since 1951. [2] This land is commonly – other than mainly to state Holborn, meaning part of Holborn – called Hatton Garden. St Peter's church is defunct, rationalising the number of churches in line with population changes of the district.
William Henry, 2nd Baron Leigh gave the site for the church. It was built with funds from John Hubbard, 1st Baron Addington, [5] and designed by William Butterfield in 1859. Construction occurred between 1861 and 1862 in yellow and red stock bricks with stone dressings and tiled roofs. In 1862 Alexander Mackonochie became its first perpetual curate. He introduced a daily Eucharist, which featured Gregorian chant and significant ritual elements (e.g. the lighting of altar candles and the cleansing of eucharistic vessels at the altar). St Alban's was the first Anglican church to hold the three-hour devotion on Good Friday (in 1864) and one of the first to celebrate a Harvest Festival. Mackonochie also openly heard confessions. Mackonochie's pastoral ministry was typical of the 19th-century ritualist "slum priest". With his two curates, Arthur Stanton (who remained at the church until his death in 1913) and Edward Russell, and lay assistants he founded schools, soup kitchens, a working men's club, mothers' meetings, clothing funds and more. Though he remained until 1882 and remained as an assistant priest thereafter, he became known as "the martyr of St Alban's" from those making "regular" Low Church requests and moves to temper his ritualism. [6]
In 1891 a chapel was added to designs by Charles Henry Money Mileham (1837–1917), with the chapel's stained glass by Charles Eamer Kempe added in 1898 – it now also contains two Stations of the Cross by Ninian Comper.
The 1890s saw the future bishop Hensley Henson (then vicar of St Margaret's Barking) frequently visit as a guest preacher. [7]
In 1938 the church hosted England's first complete performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur , organised by Felix Aprahamian and played by the composer himself. The church was burned out during the London Blitz in 1941, though the chapel survived. The main church was restored by Adrian Gilbert Scott between 1959 and 1961, including a new organ by John Compton. Beside the church's entrance is a 1985 sculpture by Hans Feibusch entitled 'Jesus being Raised from the Dead' – the same artist had produced the church's current set of Stations of the Cross (date unknown) and a mural of the Holy Trinity for the east wall (1966).
On 9 June 1990 the church hosted the foundation of Affirming Catholicism, representing a liberal strand of Anglo-Catholicism, though the church itself is now considered a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic parish – as such, it is under the Alternative Episcopal Oversight of the Bishop of Fulham (currently Jonathan Baker). [8]
The current vicar is Fr Christopher Smith who has been in the post since 2011. He was preceded by Fr Howard Levett who retired in 2010.
Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches.
Affirming Catholicism, sometimes referred to as AffCath, is a movement operating in several provinces of the Anglican Communion, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and the United States. In the US, the movement is known as Affirming Anglican Catholicism (AAC). The movement represents a liberal strand of Anglo-Catholicism and is particularly noted for holding that Anglo-Catholic belief and practice is compatible with the ordination of women. It also generally supports ordination into the threefold ministry regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
Ritualism, in the history of Christianity, refers to an emphasis on the rituals and liturgical ceremonies of the Church, specifically the Christian practice of Holy Communion.
The Society of the Holy Cross is an international Anglo-Catholic society of male priests with members in the Anglican Communion and the Continuing Anglican movement, who live under a common rule of life that informs their priestly ministry and charism.
Robert William Radclyffe Dolling (1851–1902), often referred to as Father Dolling, was an Irish Anglo-Catholic priest who served mainly in London and Portsmouth.
Thomas Pelham Dale (1821–1892) was an English Anglo-Catholic ritualist priest, most notable for being prosecuted and imprisoned for ritualist practices.
Charles Fuge Lowder was a priest of the Church of England. He was the founder of the Society of the Holy Cross, a society for Anglo-Catholic priests.
Herbert Hensley Henson was an English Anglican bishop, scholar and controversialist. He was Bishop of Hereford from 1918 to 1920 and Bishop of Durham from 1920 to 1939.
The Parish Church of St Margaret is a Church of England parish church situated on St Margaret's Road, off Bury Old Road (A665) in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England. The Grade II listed church, in the Diocese of Manchester, was designed in the Decorated style by the Manchester architects Travis and Mangnall in 1849 as a chapel-of-ease to the ancient Prestwich Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin. Opened in 1851, it was extended in 1863, 1871, 1884, 1888 and 1899, and is notable for its fine Arts and Crafts wood carvings by Arthur Simpson of Kendal and late twentieth-century fittings. The church's daughter church of St George, Simister, is in the same parish.
Alexander Heriot Mackonochie was a Church of England mission priest known as "the martyr of St Alban's" on account of his prosecution and forced resignation for ritualist practices.
St Matthew's Church, Westminster, is an Anglican church in Westminster, London. Located in the heart of the capital, close to the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Church House, St Matthew's has been closely associated with the recovery of the Catholic heritage of the Church of England from its early days. One of the foremost leaders of that movement, Frank Weston, Bishop of Zanzibar, served at St Matthew's from 1916–1918.
Richard William Enraght was an Irish-born Church of England priest of the late nineteenth century. He was influenced by the Oxford Movement and was included amongst the priests commonly called "Second Generation" Anglo-Catholics.
St Thomas the Martyr Church is a Church of England parish church of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, in Oxford, England, near Oxford railway station in Osney. It is located between Becket Street to the west and Hollybush Row to the east, with St Thomas Street opposite.
Hans Nathan Feibusch was a German painter and sculptor of Jewish heritage who lived and worked in Britain from 1933 until his death. He is best known for his murals, particularly in Anglican churches. In all he worked in thirty Anglican churches and produced what is probably the largest body of work in his particular métier by any artist in the history of the Church of England.
Jonathan Mark Richard Baker is a bishop of the Church of England who is currently suffragan Bishop of Fulham, providing alternative episcopal oversight in the dioceses of London, Southwark and Rochester. He was formerly Bishop of Ebbsfleet, providing provincial episcopal oversight to the western half of the Province of Canterbury.
Arthur Henry Stanton (1839–1913) was an English Anglo-Catholic priest in the latter decades of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, is a progressive Episcopal parish church in the liberal Anglo-Catholic tradition. It is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania and is located in the Philadelphia Main Line.
St Mary and All Saints Church is the parish church of Little Walsingham in the English county of Norfolk. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and All Saints. Little Walsingham was the location of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, destroyed at the Dissolution. The Anglican shrine was revived by Alfred Hope Patten, the Vicar of Little Walsingham, in 1922, and the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was in the church until its translation to the new priory in 1931.
Orby Shipley was an English clergyman, editor, liturgist, translator, publisher, and hymn-writer. An Anglo-Catholic convert to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England, he had been a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross before his conversion. Shipley served at St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford and St Alban's Church, Holborn as an Anglican priest. Shipley and his wife became Roman Catholics in 1878.
St Osmund's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It was designed by Augustus Pugin in the Gothic Revival style and built in 1847–1848. It is on Exeter Street, opposite Bishop Wordsworth's School, in the city centre. It is a Grade II listed building.