NEWSLETTER  

MAY 2026

My writing life

Writing etc.

May started with me giving a talk on ‘Easter and Pentecost – the untold stories’.  About a dozen came.  It was a genial evening, helped by wine and cheese. Two copies of my ‘Bible in Brief’ were sol plus one of  ‘Jesus the Troublemaker.’  I was pleased.

I made real progress with ‘Was Nicaea a Mistake?’, working both in the V&A and in the British Library.  A short introduction to the whole book, and three major chapters. These were ‘The Donatist Schism’, Alexandria and Antioch, and ‘Arius and Alexander’.  I started on ‘Constantine and Nicaea’.  For this last one I made my first request to the British Library for a particular book.  Now it will be waiting for me up to the end of the week.  Here are three short extracts of my book so far:

The Donatist Schism

‘By 330 the government (church and empire) had lost control of the situation (in North Africa).   Constantine had built a splendid new basilica for the Catholic church in Cirta, Numidia.  The Donatists at once seized control of it and could not be ejected.  So Constantine told the catholic bishop “with a calm mind to relinquish to their wickedness what is yours and ask instead for another site for yourselves…”’

Alexandria and Antioch

Sailing from Cyprus for three days, you would at last see the top of the amazing Alexandria lighthouse. Over 100 metres high, you could see it almost 30 miles away, or eight hours sailing…. In 300 AD the Greek and Egyptian quarters would be bustling. The Jewish quarter would be still recovering from the massacres of the ‘Diaspora War’ of 115-117.  ’

Arius and Alexander

Two (Egyptian) bishops were sharing the same prison cell, Peter and Meletius. They had both been arrested when Diocletian published his surprise edict of persecution in February 303. Now they were not speaking to each other.  (Meletius had started ordaining his own bishops and presbyters).  Bishop Peter even hung up a curtain down the middle so that he wouldn’t have to look at the pestilential fellow next door.

 An early supporter of Meletius was a learned and ascetic layman called Arius. When Peter was arrested again and before he was beheaded,  Arius made his peace with him.  Mellitus and his followers never forgave the turncoat…

Constantine and Nicaea

Constantine sent Alexander and Arius a letter pleading for peace.  It is a classic example how not to be a peacemaker.He was just pouring paraffin onto a house fire:

“Let both the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer receive your mutual forgiveness.  Fo the cause of your difference has not been any of the leading doctrines or precepts of the law … For as long as you continue to contend about these small and very insignificant questions, I believe it to be not merely unbecoming, but positively evil, that so large a portion of God’s people which belongs o your jurisdiction should be thus divided.”

It did not work!

Church 

Services

I took two services for Pentecost and Trinity.  In the latter I talked about Sunderland and knitting (not together).  

At All Saints Sunderland they held a prayer meeting about the church’s debts.  The Holy Spirit fell in power and they had a series of revival meetings.  They paid off their debt without asking for a single special collection.  The stone tablet outside reads:  “SEPTEMBER 1907 – WHEN THE FIRE OF THE LORD FELL IT BURNED UP THE DEBT’.

Metropolitan Anthony Bloom was asked by a lady how she could pray. He asked if she knitted.  When she said she did, he said, “Be totally present. Take out your knitting and knit for about 15 minutes before the face of God, but I forbid you to say one word of prayer.”

Wednesday Saints

This month we remembered martyrs of the Reformation, the Ascension, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin and Augustine of Canterbury. 

Here are some of the English Reformation martyrs we remembered, Protestant and Catholic:  William Tyndale, Thomas Bilney, John Fisher, Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, 312 burnt under Mary I, Edmund Campion, Margaret Clitheroe,  the Separatists Matthew Harmon and Henry Barrowes, and the Forty Catholic Martyrs (1535-1679).

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In 1549 Joan of Kent, a radical Protestant, was condemned as a heretic.  (This was in the reign of the Protestant Edward VI).   John Foxe, one of the few Protestants opposed to burnings, approached Bishop Rogers to intervene to save Joan, but the bishop refused saying that burning was “sufficiently mild” for a crime as grave as heresy.  Rogers was later burnt for heresy under Mary I.

Bible on Zoom

For five years I have been leading a fortnightly Bible study group on Thursdays at 7.30. This month we changed it to a weekly group, limited strictly to an hour and with people taking in turns to lead it.  It feels more relaxed, not having to get to the end of a chapter.  

If you would like to join, just send me an email.

Outings

May is a lovely month, and I am glad to say I have not been inside all the time. 

Linda gave me a lovely birthday present, four days in Sussex. We stayed in a beautiful cottage in Henfield, fifty yards from the mediaeval church. Then came a marvellous visit to Knepp Rewilding Project.  This is a large estate  of 3,500 acres where they have allowed nature to take over from 2000.   We saw storks in their nests, wild Tamworth pigs and the unmistakeable evidence of beavers, leaving rows of trees reduced to pencil stubs.  And bird song!   Next day we strolled round Henfield Common and Shoreham-by-Sea.  We spent Sunday in Penshurst at church. I then had the best full English breakfast of my life at the Kingdom Cafe. Then we saw the 1341 Great Hall of Penshurst Place and the entrancing 18th century gardens. 

Tamworth pig at Knepp

The next day, back in London, we went to see the David Hockney enormous painting of a year in Normandy, He painted it during Covid, And we discovering a new bit of Kensington Gardens.   

Last weekend Linda was with her father in Plymouth, so I walked from Notting Hill Gate to the National Gallery in 33 degree heat.  It was great strolling through Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park, St James’ Park up to the National Gallery.  It was not all walking.  I did doze in a deck chair for an hour! 

Henry Moore’s Arch at Kensington Gardens

Culture

Art

At the National Gallery I made one discovery: a self-portrait by the woman painter Elizabeth Le Brun (1782). So alive!  And also the scene by Rembrandt of Jesus and Caiaphas – really hard to tear your eyes away.

Film

Notable films this month were the French existentialist ‘The Stranger’ (‘L’Etranger’) – a ‘non-boring film about boredom’); and a wonderful film on TV with Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson at the very end of their careers, telling the (true) story of a 90 year old veteran who got himself to the D-Day celebrations in France. Yesterday I went to the live screening of a new opera at the Met in New York. ‘La Ultimate Sueno de Frida y Diego’,  (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), was set during the Mexican Day of the Dead’ – totally amazing speclacte. Check it out on YouTube.

Music

The stand-out musical piece for me was the Piano Trio by Amy Beach. Do look up her astonishing life in Wikipedia.

Books

I finished ‘Rebel Empresses’ – still can’t get over the tragic death of Sisi.

That’s all for now.  This month, God willing, more writing!

God bless

Andy

Pelicans at St James Park