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Your answers
What is the origin of naming our C of E churches after the saints? When did this custom start? Is it normal in the Anglican Communion?
Probably by the third century, Christians met for worship around the graves of holy people and saints, and this extended into constructing a building around them, named after the saint. Meanwhile, Constantine built his basilicas over such holy places, e.g. the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Nativity in Bethlehem, SS. Peter and Paul in Rome.
Then, in the early Middle Ages, relics were obtained and deposited in large churches, which were named after the relic, e.g. St Mark in Venice and St James in Santiago. But less pretentious churches were named after a saint whose example the monks or laity wished to follow. Very often this was a local saint, as often in Cornwall, but also more widely in names such as St Hilda, St Bede, St Wilfrid, and St Werburga.
The Church of England expressed continuity with pre-Reformation days in retaining saints’ names for churches. Occasionally, in the 18th century the dedication was lost, and near me is a church that re-emerged in the 19th century with a different dedication. References to the divinity became commoner, notably Christ Church and Holy Trinity. Others are named after people such as King Charles the Martyr, John Keble, and William Temple.
In my experience, the custom is universal in the Anglican Communion. St Alban’s in Tokyo and St Andrew’s in Singapore are typical examples.
Christopher Haffner (Reader)
East Molesey, Surrey
Long before the conversion of England, the saintly patronage of churches was well established in the Western Church. The earliest names of churches in Rome were those of the owners of the buildings where Christians met for worship. From such domestic beginnings so-called “titular” churches developed —associated with heroes of the faith.
Constantine’s famous basilicas, built outside the city walls, were named after St Peter, the Blessed Apostles, and St Marcellinus and St Agnes; and, before the end of the fourth century, the magnificent basilicas of St Paul and Santa Maria Maggiore had been erected. Some of the oldest Roman churches were built over the graves of renowned Christians, remembered by name.
Several practical and doctrinal factors also explain this custom of naming churches after the saints: the need to identify churches; the requirement sometimes to re-claim and consecrate former pagan temples; and the rise of the cult of saints and their relics.
In recent research (see Graham Jones, Saints in the Landscape, Tempus, 2007), it has been shown that the choice of saints for church dedications in medieval England was influenced by the order and grouping of the heavenly intercessors in litanies of the saints.
Apostles head the list, and hence the frequency of churches named after St Peter, St Paul, St Andrew, etc., often as multiple apostolic dedications. Martyrs were regularly represented by St Laurence, and, confessors by the ever popular St Nicholas. Matrons and virgins were often honoured by the choice of St Bridget or founders of religious houses. Much prominence was given to St John the Baptist, St Anne, and St Mary Magdalene, but not surprisingly a predominant number of parish churches came under the patronage of our Lady, St Mary.
(Canon) Terry Palmer
Magor, Monmouthshire
Churches were being dedicated in honour of saints in the Mediterranean world by 400, such as Nola to Felix and Milan to Gervase and Protase. The practice spread to Britain, and the Church of St Martin in Canterbury already existed when Augustine arrived in 597. British churches were commonly dedicated to the Trinity, Christ, angels, or saints, up to the Reformation.
The C of E then discouraged saint veneration, and church dedications went out of use except in towns where they remained with a purely topographical significance.
Interest in church dedications revived in England in the 18th and 19th centuries, by which time many had been forgotten and new ones were conjectured or invented. I have written a book on this subject: English Church Dedications.
(Canon Professor) Nicholas Orme
Oxford
Your questions
Until recently, some time after 1983, the Prayer Book stated: “The Curates of every Parish shall often admonish the people, that they defer not the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their birth, or other Holy-day falling between, unless upon a great and reasonable cause, to be approved by the Curate” (Private Baptism of Children, first rubric). Who caused this to be changed, and when? A. B.
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