‘Medea’ comes to Stony Stratford with a timeless tragedy of passion and betrayal

Patrick Comerford

While I am away, I am going to miss not just one but many opportunities to see Medea by Euripides which is being staged between 19 and 23 October in the Swinfen Harris Greek Church Hall on London Road, Stony Stratford.

This is a new adaptation of the play by Tim Dalgleish and Sally Luff, based on the translation by Robinson Jeffers, and features original music by songwriter Mark Denman.

The Greek tragedy Medea opens in a state of chaos and conflict and passion, betrayal and revenge take centre stage. Jason, the hero of the Argo has abandoned his wife of 10 years and two sons so he can marry Glauce, daughter of the King of Corinth, to increase his status and standing in Greece. Medea had assisted Jason to steal the Golden Fleece and became his wife. But she is an outsider and when she is spurned she plans her revenge with a series of murders.

Medea has been adapted by the Carabosse Theatre Company, and this new and immersive adaptation promises to be a powerful and unforgettable theatrical experience.

The Carabosse Theatre Company is known for pushing the boundaries of traditional theatre and with Medea has blurred the lines between audience and actors, drawing the audience deeper into the story than ever before.

As Medea (played by Danni Kushner) plots her chilling revenge, the production captures the raw emotion and intensity of a timeless tragedy in an evening of passion, power, and the dark depths of the human soul.

Medea by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Frederick Sandys … its rejection for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1868 caused a storm of protest

The rise of far-right politics across Europe, and the anti-immigrant grand-standing of Reform and hard ‘Brexiters’ in Britain, are symptomatic of a hardening of hearts towards the plight of refugees and asylum.

The marginalisation and demonising of the foreigner and the perceived outsider is at the heart of Medea, which remains the great classical Greek tragedy about the fear of the foreigner and about confusion that arises about the sexuality of the other when we objectify the foreigner in our midst.

I first started to try reading Medea in the original Greekof Euripides almost 40 years ago, in the 1980s, when, following a course in Biblical Greek, I began a Cambridge course in Classical Greek. Shortly afterwards, I was in Rethymnon in Crete when Medea was staged using the original text in the theatre in the Fortezza.

Of course, this is a familiar story in Crete, and Medea herself is associated with the Cave of Melidoni near the village of Mylopotamos, in the mountains above Rethymnon. During the Minoan era, the cave was a centre for the worship of the mythical bronze giant of Crete, Talos, who was believed to ensure the safety and the security of the island. The giant robot ran the round of Crete twice a day, but legend says that Medea removed the tack that protected his only vein, his vital fluid flushed out, and Talos died.

The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, where ‘Medea’ was first staged (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Medea (Μήδεια) is a tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Jason and Medea, and it was first produced in 431 BCE. The plot centres on the actions of Medea, a barbarian and the wife of Jason. After the adventures of the Golden Fleece, Jason takes his wife Medea into exile at Corinth. However, he then leaves her, seeking to advance his political ambitions by marrying Glauke, the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.

Medea seeks vengeance by killing Jason’s new wife, his father-in-law and the children Medea had with Jason. Having taken her revenge, she escapes to Athens to begin a new life.

This tragedy is generally considered the best play written by Euripides and one of the greatest plays ever. However, it only came third when it was presented at the Dionysia Festival in 431 BCE. This may have been because of the extensive changes Euripides made to the conventions of Greek theatre in the play. These include an indecisive chorus, implicitly criticising Athenian society and showing disrespect for the gods.

As with most Greek tragedies, the play does not require any change of scene and takes place throughout outside the façade of the palace of Jason and Medea in Corinth. Events that occur off-stage, such as the deaths of Glauke and Creon and Medea’s murder of her children, are described in elaborate speeches delivered by a messenger, rather than enacted before the audience.

Although there are virtually no stage directions, Medea’s appearance in a chariot drawn by dragons towards the end of the play probably required a construction on the roof of the skene or suspended from a mechane, a kind of crane used in Greek theatres for flying scenes.

The play explores many universal themes.

It deals with passion and rage, for Medea is a woman of extreme behaviour and emotion, and Jason’s betrayal of her has transformed her passion into rage and intemperate destruction.

It discusses revenge, for Medea is willing to sacrifice everything to make her revenge perfect.

It explores greatness and pride. In classical Greece, people were fascinated by the thin line between greatness and hubris, or pride, and the idea that the same traits that make a man or woman great can lead to destruction.

It asks us to consider how we deal with the Other. Medea’s exotic foreignness is emphasised, and is made worse by her status as an exile. But Euripides shows during the play that the Other is not exclusively something external to Greece.

It confronts our prejudices about intelligence and our abilities to be manipulative. Jason and Creon both seek to be manipulative, but Medea is the great manipulator, playing on the weaknesses and needs of both her enemies and her friends.

It challenges our concepts of justice in an unjust society, especially where women and foreigners are concerned, and so it is seen by some as one of the first works of feminism.

Medea’s opening speech to the Chorus is the most eloquent statement in classical Greek literature about the injustices that befall women. Indeed, the relationship between the Chorus and Medea is one of the most interesting in Greek drama. The women are alternately horrified and enthralled by Medea, living vicariously through her. They both condemn her and pity her for her horrible acts, yet do nothing to interfere.

Is Medea a monster because she is a foreigner or because of the way she is treated by the men in her life?

How do we react to a foreigner who moves beyond being the object of our pity and is seen as noble, proud, efficient, and unwilling to be the object of pity, to be marginalised, to be denied rights, to continue to be treated as the outsider?

The form of the play differs from many other Greek tragedies by its simplicity. All the scenes involve only two actors, Medea and someone else. These encounters serve to highlight Medea’s skill and determination in manipulating powerful male figures to achieve her own ends.

The play is also the only Greek tragedy in which a character kills family members yet remains unpunished by the end of the play, and the only play about child-killing in which the deed is performed in cold blood rather than in a state of temporary madness.

Medea exposes the false pieties and hypocritical values of her enemies, and uses their own moral bankruptcy against them. Her revenge is total, but it comes at the cost of everything she holds dear. She murders her own children in part because she cannot bear the thought of seeing them hurt by an enemy.

Jason, on the other hand, is a condescending, opportunistic and unscrupulous man, full of self-deception. The other main male characters, Creon and Aegeus, are weak and fearful, considering only their own interests and ambitions.

When it was first staged in Athens in 431 BCE as one of plays at the City Dionysia, Medea shocked the judges and the audience and came last. Each year, three playwrights competed against each other at the festival, and in 431 BCE the competition was between Euphorion, the son of Aeschylus, Sophocles, who was the main rival of Euripides, and Euripides. Euphorion won, and Euripides was placed last.

The City Dionysia (Διονύσια τὰ ἐν Ἄστει) or Great Dionysia (Διονύσια τὰ Μεγάλα) was an urban festival celebrating the end of winter and harvesting the year’s crops. The Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus is sometimes confused with the later and better-preserved Odeon of Herodes Atticus, on the south-west slope of the Acropolis. It is one of the earliest theatres in Athens, and is considered the first theatre in the world. It could seat 17,000 people, compared with the theatre in Epidaurus, which can still seat 14,000 people.

Euripides’ characterisation of Medea exhibits the inner emotions of passion, love, and vengeance. Until then, tradition said Medea’s children were killed by the Corinthians after her escape. Euripides’ retelling of the story so that Medea kills her own children might have offended his audience.

Medea is set in Corinth some time after Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, where he met Medea. The play opens in a state of conflict. Jason (Ἰάσων) has abandoned his wife, Medea, along with their two children. He hopes to advance his place in life by marrying Glauke (Γλαυκή), the daughter of Creon (Κρέων), the King of Corinth. Medea grieves over the loss of her husband’s love, and curses her own existence, as well as that of her two children.

Her elderly nurse and the Chorus of Corinthian women, who are generally sympathetic to her plight, fear what she might do to herself or her children.

Jason accuses Medea of over-reacting. By voicing her grievances so publicly, she has endangered her life and the lives of their children. He claims his decision to remarry is in everyone’s best interest. Medea says he is spineless, and she refuses to accept his token offers of help. She reminds him that she left her own people for him: ‘I am the mother of your children. Whither can I fly, since all Greece hates the barbarian?’

King Creon fears the possibility of revenge, and so he banishes Medea and her two sons from Corinth. Medea pleads for mercy, and is granted one more day before she must leave. It goes against his better judgment, but he allows it out of pity for Medea’s two sons.

However, Medea is not the sort of woman to take mistreatment easily, and she plans swift and bloody revenge through killing Creon, Glauke and Jason.

Medea needs to secure a safe place to retreat to once she has committed the murders. By chance and by coincidence, Aegeus, King of Athens, appears on the scene. He has no sons and heirs, and Medea promises to cure his sterility if, in return, he gives her refuge. Of course, she does not mention she is about to kill so many people.

With a guarantee of a safe haven in Athens, Medea has cleared all obstacles to completing her revenge. Her plan grows to include the murder of her own children. The pain their loss will cause her does not outweigh the satisfaction she will feel by making Jason suffer.

Now that Medea has a promise of a safe exile, she develops her plan. She pretends to Jason that she understands his new marriage. Medea begs her husband to ask Glauke to secure a promise from her father that their two sons can stay in Corinth. Jason is moved and agrees. Medea gives Jason a gossamer dress and a golden crown as gifts for Glauke, but does not tell him that the gifts are cursed.

The coronet and dress are poisoned, and their delivery causes Glauke’s death. Seeing his daughter ravaged by the poison, Creon chooses to die by her side by dramatically embracing her and absorbing the poison himself.

A messenger returns and tells Medea the gruesome details of these deaths. When the princess put on the gown and crown, her entire body caught fire and her flesh melted from her bones.

King Creon is so distraught when he sees his daughter’s flaming corpse that he throws his body onto hers and dies as well.

Medea listens to all this with a cool attention to the detail. Her earlier state of anxiety, which intensified as she struggled with the decision to kill her children, now gives way to an assured determination to fulfil her plans and so leave Jason totally devastated.

Against the protests of the chorus, Medea murders her children. The murder of her children is not easy for Medea. She struggles with her motherly instincts, but in the end her revenge is more important. She drags the boys inside the house and kills them with a sword. Jason arrives too late to save his sons.

Medea flees the scene, escaping in a dragon-pulled chariot provided by her grandfather, the sun-god. Jason is left cursing his lot. He begs to have the children’s bodies so that he can bury them. She refuses him even this, and takes their corpses away with her as she flies away triumphant.

She confronts Jason, revelling in his pain at being unable to ever hold his children again: ‘I do not leave my children’s bodies with thee; I take them with me that I may bury them in Hera’s precinct. And for thee, who didst me all that evil, I prophesy an evil doom.’

She escapes to Athens with the bodies. The chorus is left contemplating the will of Zeus in Medea’s actions:

Manifold are thy shapings, Providence!
Many a hopeless matter gods arrange.
What we expected never came to pass,
What we did not expect the gods brought to bear;
So have things gone, this whole experience through!

I missed the opportunity to see ‘Medea’ performed in the theatre in the Fortezza in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern interpretations

My early memories of Medea are the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts, in which Medea, played by Nancy Kovack, is portrayed as a Temple Dancer who is saved by Jason after her ship sinks, and the 1969 film Medea, directed by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini and featuring the Greek opera singer Maria Callas in the title role.

A new translation of the play by Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael was staged in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2000. When Medea was staged in the National Theatre in London in 2014, the Guardian interviewed two actors, Helen McCrory and Diana Rigg, who played the role 20 years apart and spoke about why it still resonates.

As part of the celebrations marking the 90th birthday of the Greek composer the late Mikis Theodorakis, the film Recycling Medea directed by Asteris Koutoulas had its world premiere in 2015. Koutoulas had been Theodorakis’ music producer and manager abroad since 1986 and had worked with him in many countries.

This film is a hybrid ballet performance music and political documentary film collage, with a poignant relevance given the present crises in Greece. This film by Asteris Koutoulas includes music by Theodorakis, with choreography by Renato Zanella and featuring Maria Kousouni as Medea.

The classical Greek tragedy served as an astute metaphor for the Greek political, social and economic tragedy at the time. Script, sound and dance joined in a powerful film reflecting the desperation of a society that had spent all of yesterday turning its children into today’s lost generation.

The protagonists are flanked and contrasted by the disturbingly mild-mannered 15-year-old Bella, who is innocence incarnate but is destroyed by the hand of a hostile and selfish world. Against this background, she seems an almost unreal, fictitious character. On the other hand, there is no fiction in the words of Anne Frank, hidden away in her Amsterdam hideout and filling the pages of her diary. Another child victim of racism in Europe lends today’s isolated and trusting Bella her ‘voice’ and thoughts.

Medea, Jason, Bella and Anne Frank, composer and protester Theodorakis, the dancers, the rebelling hooded teenagers, advancing police, the choreographer and camera crew – they all become (in)voluntary actors in this complex tragedy spanning the ages. Recycling Medea has been dedicated to the betrayed youth – and their parents who sacrificed the dreams and future of their own children.

But Medea is relevant to Europe’s problems today and Britain’s problems too, and our responses to the foreigners we refuse to accept among us.



• The performances of Medea in the Swinfen Harris Greek Church Hall, London Road, Stony Stratford, are on 19 October (7:30), 20 October (1:30 and 7:30), and 21, 22 and 23 October (7:30).

There are more animals than the sheep in Paternoster Square, thanks to Gillie and Marc

Gia the giant ‘mother’ gorilla welcomes the animals in Paternoster Square into the safety of her embrace (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Paternoster Square on the north side of Saint Paul’s Cathedral is the location of the London Stock Exchange, investment banks and fund managers. Surprisingly, though, the square itself is privately owned public space. The London Stock Exchange was the initial target of the ‘Occupy London’ protests in 2011, but the police thwarted the protesters’ attempts to occupy the square and sealed off the entrance.

A High Court injunction defined the square as private property, even though it had been repeatedly described as ‘public space’ in the plans for Paternoster Square. It all means the public has access but without a right of way in law, and the owner can limit access at any time.

The main monument in the square is the 23 metre (75 ft) Paternoster Square Column, William Whitfield’s Corinthian column of Portland stone topped by a gold leaf covered flaming copper urn, illuminated by fibre-optic lighting at night. However, the most-known work in the square must be Dame Elisabeth Frink’s Shepherd and Sheep, or Paternoster.

The bronze statue, commissioned in 1975, recalls not only Psalm 23 (‘The Lord is my Shepherd’) – but is also a play on the words Pater and Pastor and is a reminder of the traditional right of the Freemen of London to drive their sheep across London Bridge into the City of London.

Apollo a giraffe and Mila a Javan rhino by Gillie and Marc in Paternoster Square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

But there are more animals than sheep in Paternoster Square at present. Following last year’s sculpture of an animals’ dining table, the artists Gillie and Marc are back in Paternoster Square with yet another menagerie of animals with their sculptures ‘Wild About Babies’. Their current exhibition in Paternoster Square was launched last month (January 2024) and continues until January 2025.

This exhibition appeals to the inherent inability we all have to resist the charm of baby animals and our deep connection with the innocence of nature. They hope these creatures not only uplift people but also spark an urge to protect.

The project is a creative and artistic response to what is described as the ‘sixth mass extinction’. In January 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed 203 critically endangered mammalian species, including 31 which were tagged as possibly extinct. Wildlife is facing enormous human-made challenges, including climate change and poaching.

The sculptures by Gillie and Marc now in Paternoster Square bring an array of baby animals to the streets in partnership with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). The installation features six endangered baby animals, watched over by Gia, the giant 30-year-old ‘mother’ gorilla, a majestic three-metre creation representing the universal mother. She sits with her arms spread wide, welcoming all the animals into the safety of her embrace.

These creatures are crafted in bronze: Astrid, a young five-year-old giant tortoise; Bailey, a four-month-old African elephant; Apollo, a three-week-old giraffe; Mila, a four-month-old Javan rhino; Luna, a two-month-old hippo; and Clio, a six-month-old Bengal tiger.

The project is interactive, so each sculpture has a QR code with information and images of the real-life animal in its natural habitat and with an understanding of the diversity of wildlife, the plight these animals face and why they are so important to our planet.

Gillie and Marc’s Rabbitwoman and Dogman tell the tale of two opposites coming together as best friends and soul mates (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Nearby too are Gillie and Marc’s Rabbitwoman and Dogman sculptures, with a sign explaining the installation and telling of the work of Gillie and Marc.

Gillie and Marc Shattner are two British and Australian collaborative artists who have been called ‘the most successful and prolific creators of public art’ by the New York Times. They create innovative public sculptures, seeking to redefine what public art should be and spreading their message of love, equality, and conservation.

Gillie and Marc are known for Rabbitwoman and Dogman, two trademark characters who tell the tale of two opposites coming together as best friends and soul mates. They stand for diversity and acceptance through love. Their public artworks can be seen New York, London, Singapore, Shanghai and Sydney, and they have raised hundreds of thousands for wildlife charities.

Clio, a six-month-old Bengal tiger, and Astrid, a young giant tortoise (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Last year, I enjoyed their collections in Spitalfields, including the ‘Herd of Hope’ – a family of 21 life-sized bronze elephants embarking on the journey of a lifetime as they migrate across London – and ‘Together Forever on Wheels,’ incorporating two of their most popular sculpture themes, Rabbitwoman and Dogman, Vespas and coffee.

Now I need also to see the ‘Wild Table of Love,’ Gillie and Marc’s exhibition in Paddington, with the invitation to join the banquet, with Rabbitwoman and Dogman host at the party. The animals are already tucking in at the table, and all that is left is for the public to take our seats.

• Wild About Babies is Paternoster Square until January 2025.

Luna, a two-month-old hippo, and Bailey, a four-month-old African elephant (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Red Lion Square, reminders of Fenner Brockway, and the death of a student on a protest 50 years ago

The statue of Fenner Brockway (1888-1988) by Ian Walters in Red Lion Square in Holborn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

During my strolls around Bloomsbury, Holborn and Fleet Street earlier this month, I visited a number of London churches that I have blogged about in recent days. But I also stopped to visit Red Lion Square, a small square in Holborn.

This square was home in the Victorian era to many of the pre-Raphaelites. It has a sculpture commemorating Fenner Brockway, a father-figure – or, perhaps, a grandparent figure – in the modern peace movement.

I remember Red Lion Square too as the place where 50 years ago Kevin Gately, a young student, was left dead during a protest against fascism and racism on 15 June 1974. He was the first person to die in a public demonstration in Britain for over half a century, and no one has ever been held responsible for his death.

Although Oliver Cromwell’s head is said to be buried in the antechapel in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, some sources say that after the Restoration the bodies of Cromwell, his son-in-law Henry Ireton, and a third regicide John Bradshaw, were dumped in a pit on the site of the square in 1661 after they had been exhumed and beheaded posthumously.

Red Lion Square was laid out in 1684 by Nicholas Barbon, who was active in redeveloping the City after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Barbon was the eldest son of the Fifth Monarchist Praise-God Barebone (or Barbon), who gave his name to ‘Barebone’s Parliament’, the predecessor in 1653 of Cromwell’s Protectorate. At his baptism in 1640, his father gave Nicholas an unusual tongue-twister of a baptismal name: ‘If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned.’

Barbon’s developments, including squares, streets and houses on the Strand, Bloomsbury, St Giles and Holborn, linked the City of London with Westminster for the first time. Red Lion Square took its name from the Red Lion Inn, reputed to be the most important pub in Holborn. It was a fashionable part of London in the 1720s, when the residents included an eminent judge Sir Bernard Hale and Sir Robert Raymond, Lord Chief Justice.

Red Lion Square was ‘beautified’ under an Act of Parliament in 1737. But, by then, it had become a ‘receptacle for rubbish, dirt and nastiness of all kinds and an encouragement to common beggars, vagabonds and other disorderly persons.’

Charles Lamb was painted at No 3 in 1826 by Henry Mayer. A generation later, many of the Pre-Raphaelites lived and worked on Red Lion Square. Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived at No 17 in 1851, while William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Richard Watson Dixon also lived at No 17 from 1856 to 1859. No 8 was a decorator’s shop run by Morris, Burne-Jones and others from 1860 to 1865, and it was the first headquarters of Marshall, Faulkner & Co, founded by William Morris.

At the same time as these Pre-Raphaelites were living and working in Red Lion Square, Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), a towering figure in 19th century theology, lived at No 31. He was sacked as Professor of Theology at King’s College London in 1853 because of his leadership in the Christian Socialist Movement, but became a professor of theology at Cambridge in 1866.

However, Red Lion Square may have become unfashionable by 1860s. Anthony Trollope, in Orley Farm (1862), reassures his readers that one of his characters is perfectly respectable, despite living in Red Lion Square.

The landscape gardener Fanny Wilkinson laid out the square as a public garden in 1885. In 1894, the trustees of the square passed the freehold to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and it then passed to the London County Council.

The centrepiece of the garden today is a statue by Ian Walters (1930-2006) of Fenner Brockway (1888-1988), which was installed in 1986. There is also a bust of Bertrand Russell.

Archibald Fenner Brockway was a socialist, pacifist, vegetarian, journalist and anti-war activist. He was born in Calcutta, the son of missionary parents, the Revd William George Brockway and Frances Elizabeth (Abbey). After leaving school, he worked as a journalist and joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1907. He later recalled he was introduced to socialism through Keir Hardie. He soon became the editor of the Labour Leader (later the New Leader).

He became a vegetarian in 1908 and by 1913 he was a committed pacifist. At the outbreak of World War I, he was involved in forming the No-Conscription Fellowship to campaign against the government attempts to introduce conscription. The Labour Leader offices were raided in August 1915 and he was charged with publishing seditious material. He was acquitted but was arrested again in 1916 for distributing anti-conscription leaflets. After refusing to pay a fine, he was sent to Pentonville Prison.

He was arrested a third time for refusing to be conscripted after he was denied recognition as a conscientious objector. He was court-martialled for disobeying army orders, and was jailed in the Tower of London, in a dungeon under Chester Castle and in Walton Prison, Liverpool, before he was transferred to Lincoln Jail. There he spent some time in solitary confinement until he was released in 1919. He revisited Lincoln Jail with Éamon de Valera in 1950.

Following his release, he became an active member of the India League. He became secretary of the Independent Labour Party in 1923 and later its chair.

Brockway stood for Parliament several times, including standing against Winston Churchill in a by-election in 1924. He was elected the Labour MP for Leyton East in the general election in 1929. In Parliament he was outspoken and was once ‘named’ (suspended) by the Speaker while demanding a debate on India.

He lost his seat in 1931 and he disaffiliated from the Labour Party the following year, along with the rest of the ILP. He stood unsuccessfully for the ILP in the 1934 Upton by-election and in Norwich in the 1935 election.

He was the first chair of War Resisters’ International in 1926-1934. But, despite his long-standing pacifism, he resigned from War Resisters' International at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and helped to recruit British volunteers to fight Franco’s fascist forces, including Eric Blair – better known as George Orwell. He wrote a number of articles about the Spanish Civil War, and was influential in having George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia published.

He chaired the Central Board for Conscientious Objectors throughout World War II, and continued as chair until he died. He tried to return to Parliament, but was unsuccessful as an ILP candidate in by-elections in Lancaster (1941) and Cardiff East (1942).

After World War II, he visited the British occupation zone in Germany as a war correspondent in 1946, and wrote about the visit in German Diary, published by the Left Book Club.

Brockway rejoined the Labour Party, and after an absence of over 18 years he returned to the Commons in 1950 as MP for Eton and Slough. He forced a Commons debate in 1950 when the Labour Government banished Seretse Khama from what would become Botswana after he married an English woman, an action seen an affront to apartheid South Africa.

He was one of the founders of War on Want in 1951, and from the 1950s on he regularly proposed legislation to ban racial discrimination, and spoke out against responses to the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. He strongly opposed nuclear weapons and was a founding member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

He narrowly lost his seat in the 1964 election. Later that year, he was made a life peer, with the title Baron Brockway of Eton and of Slough in the County of Buckingham.

As Lord Brockway, he campaigned for world peace and against the war in Vietnam. With Philip Noel-Baker founded the World Disarmament Campaign in 1979. It was through these campaigns that I met him in the early 1980s. He died on 28 April 1988, six months shy of his 100th birthday.

Fenner Brockway was a prominent member of the British Humanist Association and the South Place Ethical Society. His Conway Memorial Lecture in 1986 was chaired by Michael Foot and the Brockway Room at Conway Hall on Red Lion Square is named after him.

Conway Hall – the home of the South Place Ethical Society and the National Secular Society – opens on to Red Lion Square. Many remember it to this day for the protests against a meeting by the National Front in Conway Hall on 15 June 1974. In the chaos and disorder that afternoon and the police response, Kevin Gately, a student from the University of Warwick in Coventry, was left dead.

Peter Cadogan (1921-2007), who was chairman of the South Place Ethical Society from 1970 to 1981, took the controversial decision to allow the National Front to book the meeting in Conway Hall. The counter-demonstration was organised by Liberation, a movement opposing colonialism and of which Lord Brockway was the president.

In scenes that must have been reminiscent of the Battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936, the police led the National Front marchers around the south and east sides of Red Lion Square and into Conway Hall. A total of 51 people were arrested that day – all were counter-protesters and none was among the National Front.

Kevin Gately was 20 when he died as the result of a head injury that afternoon. He was not a member of any political organisation and he had come to London from Coventry for the day. It was his first protest march, and he was the first person to die in a public demonstration in Great Britain for at least 55 years.

A public inquiry by Lord Scarman denied there was any evidence that Gately had been killed by the police. Inquiries and reports refused to blame the police or the National Front for his death. Liberation was never involved in political violence, but the far-left groups who infiltrated the counter-demonstration never accepted any responsibility for their role in the afternoon’s mayhem. And Peter Cadogan always maintained that he had allowed the National Front to book the Conway Hall only in the interests of freedom of speech.

Kevin Gately and Blair Peach, who was killed in Southall in 1979, have been described as martyrs against fascism and racism, but they are largely forgotten.

As I stood in front of Fenner Brockway’s statue in Red Lion Square on a bright February morning, I recalled the price FD Maurice paid for his socialism, the radicalism of the Pre-Raphaelites, and how many of Fenner Brockway’s values remain relevant to the needs of Britain and the world today. But I also wondered who is going to remember Kevin Gately later this year on the 50th anniversary of his death or murder.

As I thought of this year’s inevitable general election, I thought of Fenner Brockway’s many efforts to get elected. But I realised too, 50 years after that dreadful and deadly afternoon in Red Lion Square, how many of the demands of the National Front have since become mainstream policies in the Conservative Party, including withdrawal from what became the European Union, caps on immigration and the forced deportation of vulnerable immigrants.

Red Lion Square in London, with Conway Hall in the distance to the left (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time with USPG: (11) 8 June 2023, Corpus Christi

The Corpus Christi procession in Cambridge last year (Photograph © Martin Bond / A Cambridge Diary)

Patrick Comerford

This week began with Trinity Sunday (4 June 2023). Over these few weeks after Trinity Sunday, I am reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

However, today is the feast of Corpus Christi, and I am digressing this morning as I reflect on this day in the Church Calendar.

The chapel in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge … designed by William Wilkins as a miniature replica of the chapel in King’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Feast of Corpus Christi:

The Feast of Corpus Christi is marked in the calendar of many Anglican churches. Although it is not a feast in the Calendar of the Church of Ireland, Corpus Christi features in the calendar of the Church of England on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and this day is being celebrated in many English churches and cathedrals today. For example, there is a Solemn Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral at 5.30 this evening. Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, is celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi with the Sung Eucharist at 7 pm, followed by sherry and shortbread refreshments in the new café.

Although Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford has been in the Anglo-Catholic tration, Corpus Christ is not being celebrated there today, and instead the Corpus Christi celebrations have been transferred to next Sunday (11 June 2023).

Traditionally, there has a Corpus Christi procession in Cambridge each year, with a brass band and hymn-singing starting with the Sung Eucharist at St Bene’t’s Church at 7 p.m., then moving along Trumpington Street, passing Corpus Christi College, Fitzbillies and the Fitzwilliam Museum as it processes to Little Saint Mary’s for Benediction, followed by refreshments. The preacher in Cambridge this evening is the Revd Jennifer Totney, Director of Contextual Training at Westcott House.

Little Saint Mary’s says this is always a ‘most enjoyable event’ and an act of witness through the streets of Cambridge. ‘We are especially keen for this to be well supported this year after the last few years of Covid and the recent loss of our friend and colleague, the Revd Anna Matthews, the former Vicar of Saint Bene’t’s, who helped start this annual tradition some years ago. So please do come along and support.’

Pusey House in Oxford has a number of Corpus Christi celebrations this week including Choral Evensong in the Chapel yesterday for the Eve of Corpus Christi with music by Brewer and Byrd. Today, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, there is High Mass at 6:30 pm with Father Guy Willis, of Saint Bene’t’s Church, Kentish Town, preaching and with music by Vaughan Williams and Byrd.This is followed with procession to Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, for Benediction.

In Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond, Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg says Mass in a corner of the public gardens in Trebizond to mark the Feast of Corpus Christi. After Mass, he holds a procession round the gardens, chanting Ave Verum, stops, preaches a short sermon in English, and says that Corpus Christi is a great Christian festival and holy day, ‘always kept in the Church of England.’

The survival of Corpus Christi in the Anglican tradition is also illustrated in the history of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Formally known as the College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary, this is the only Cambridge college founded by the townspeople of Cambridge: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Today, Corpus Christi is best known to visitors to Cambridge for its clock, the Chronophage or ‘Time Eater,’ which is accurate only once every five minutes. But the Old Court in Corpus is the oldest court in any Oxbridge college.

The new college acquired all the guild’s lands, ceremonies and revenues, including the annual Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Cambridge to Magdalene Bridge, during which the Eucharistic host was carried by a priest and several of the college’s treasures were carried by the Master and fellows, before returning to the college for an extravagant dinner.

The procession in Cambridge continued until the Reformation, but in 1535 William Sowode, who was Parker’s predecessor as Master (1523-1544), stopped this tradition. However, the college retains its pre-Reformation name and continues to have a grand dinner on the feast of Corpus Christi.

In the calendar of the Church of England, Corpus Christi is known as The Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion (Corpus Christi) and has the status of a Festival (Common Worship, p. 529). But in many parts of the Roman Catholic Church, it has now been moved from the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to the following Sunday. Yet, in the Roman Catholic Church, the feast of Corpus Christi is one of the five occasions in a year when a bishop must not to be away from his diocese unless for a grave and urgent reason.

Corpus Christi does not commemorate any one particular event in the life of Christ or in the history of the Church – but the same can be said too of Trinity Sunday (last Sunday, 4 June 2023) or the Feast of Christ the King (the Sunday before Advent). Instead, this day celebrates the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Corpus Christi first made an appearance in the Church Calendar at the suggestion of Saint Juliana of Liège, a 13th century Augustinian nun, when she suggested the feastday to her local bishop, Bishop Robert de Thorete of Liège and the Archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Pantaléon.

The bishop introduced the feastday to the calendar of his diocese in 1246, and the archdeacon subsequently introduced it to the calendar of the Western Church when he became Pope Urban IV in 1264, when he issued a papal bull, Transiturus de hoc mundo.

A liturgy for the feast was composed by the great Dominican theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who also wrote the hymns Verbum Supernum Prodiens for Lauds and Pange Lingua for Vespers of Corpus Christi.

The last two verses of Pange Lingua are often sung as a separate Latin hymn, Tantum Ergo, while the last two verses of Verbum Supernum Prodiens are sometimes sung separately as O Salutaris Hostia.

This was the very first universal feast ever sanctioned by a Pope. Corpus Christi was retained in Lutheran calendars until about 1600, and continues to be celebrated in some Lutheran churches.

Anglicans generally and officially believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist – is there any ‘presence’ that is not ‘real’? But the specifics of that belief range from transubstantiation, to something akin to a belief in a ‘pneumatic’ presence, from objective reality to pious silence.

Anglican teaching thinking about the Eucharist is best summarised in the Prayer of Humble Access:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen. – (Book of Common Prayer, 1662)

The classic Anglican aphorism with regard to this debate is found in a poem by John Donne that is often attributed to Queen Elizabeth I:

His was the Word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
and what that Word did make it;
I do believe and take it.

This, in many ways, also reflects Orthodox theology, which does not use the term ‘transubstantiation’ to systematically describe how the Gifts become the Body and Blood of Christ. Instead, the Orthodox speak of the Eucharist as a ‘Sacred Mystery’ use only the word ‘change.’ That moment of transformation of change does not take place at one particular moment during the Liturgy, but is completed at the Epiclesis.

And that completion is affirmed by our ‘Amen’ at the distribution and reception.

But when we say ‘Amen’ to those words, ‘The Body of Christ,’ at the distribution we are also saying ‘Amen’ to the Church as the Body of Christ, as Corpus Christi: ‘He [Christ] is the of the body, the church’ (Colossians 1: 18), ‘which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all’ (Ephesians 1: 23).

In the act of communion, the entire Church – past, present, and even future – is united in eternity. In Orthodox Eucharistic theology, although many separate Divine Liturgies may be celebrated, there is only one Bread and one Cup throughout all the world and throughout all time.

Corpus Christi is not just a celebration for Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics. It is part of the shared pre-Reformation heritage of the Church, and long pre-dates Tridentine teachings on the Eucharist and transubstantiation.

It is a reminder too that the Eucharist is supposed to be a regular celebration for the Church, and not just once a month, once a quarter or once a year. As someone reminded me recently, if Christ had meant us to celebrate the Eucharist only on special occasions, he would have used cake and champagne at the last Supper. But he used ordinary everyday bread and table wine.

Preaching at the Corpus Christi ecumenical protest service at the US embassy in Dublin in 1982 (Photograph: The Irish Times, 1982)

Corpus Christi in Dublin

In the Church of Ireland in Dublin, a Chantry Guild of Corpus Christ attached to Saint Michan’s Church survived for decades after the Reformation, and was still in existence in the mid-17th century.

Over forty years ago, on Good Friday, 9 April 1982, I was involved in organising and as chair of Christian CND preached at an ecumenical service outside the US Embassy in Dublin to protest against proposals to name a US nuclear submarine Corpus Christi. Those who took part included Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Mennonties and Quakers.

A few days earlier, nine of us, calling ourselves ‘Corpus Christ Witness’ and writing from the Student Christian Movement (SCM) offices then in Rathgar, Dublin, signed an open letter published in Irish newspapers condemning the proposal as blasphemous. We said that by giving that name to a ‘hunter killer’ nuclear submarine, the world was faced ‘with the choice of which God we will serve: Jesus of Nazareth, who died that all might live, or the new ‘Christ,’ which lives that all may die.’

In the US, the choice of name was condemned by 259 Roman Catholic bishops, archbishops and cardinals, 25 Episcopalian bishops, and more than 250 religious orders, denominations, organisation and councils of churches, including the United Church of Christ, the National Assembly of Women Religious and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The Chronophage or ‘Time Eater’ at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is accurate only once every five minutes … in Orthodox Eucharistic theology, there is only one Bread and one Cup throughout all time (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 51-58 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 51 ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ 53 So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’

‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them’ (John 5: 56) … the Last Supper depicted in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Today’s prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Protecting the Environment in Zambia. This theme was introduced on Sunday by USPG’s Regional Manager for Africa, Fran Mate, with a reflection from Zambia for the United Nations World Environment Day on Monday.

The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Thursday 8 June 2023, Corpus Christi):

Let us pray for the Church worldwide. May it seek to be Christ’s body on earth and through sharing his life bring life to others.

Collect:

Lord Jesus Christ,
we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament
you have given us the memorial of your passion:
grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries
of your body and blood
that we may know within ourselves
and show forth in our lives
the fruits of your redemption;
for you are alive and reign with the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
(Common Worship, p. 407)

Post Communion Prayer:

All praise to you, our God and Father,
for you have fed us with the bread of heaven
and quenched our thirst from the true vine:
hear our prayer that, being grafted into Christ,
we may grow together in unity
and feast with him in the kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(Common Worship, p. 407).

Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was founded in 1517 by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Celebrating Corpus Christi in Lichfield Cathedral last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Morning prayers in Easter with USPG: (43) 21 May 2023

The Ascension depicted in the East Window in Penmon Priory Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Ascension Day was last Thursday (18 May 2023), today is the Seventh Sunday of Easter and the Sunday after the Ascension. Eastertide and Ascensiontide continue throughout this week, until the Day of Pentecost next Sunday (28 May 2023).

A note on the Easter Season in the service booklets in Holy Trinity Church, Old Wolverton, and Saint George’s Church, Wolverton, reminds us:

‘The Great Fifty Days of Eastertide is where the joy created on Easter Day is sustained through the following seven weeks, and the Church celebrates the gloriously risen Christ.

‘The Paschal Candle we lit on Easter Day stands prominently in our church for all the Eastertide services. The Alleluia appears frequently in the liturgy, speech and song, and white or gold vestments and decorations emphasise the joy and brightness of the season.

‘On the fortieth day of Easter, there is a particular celebration of Christ's ascension. He commissions his disciples to continue his work, he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then he is no longer among them in the flesh. The ascension is therefore closely connected with the theme of mission.

‘The arrival of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost completes and crowns the Easter Festival.’

Later this morning I hope to be at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

But, before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for prayer and reflection. I am reflecting each morning during Ascensiontide in these ways:

1, Looking at a depiction of the Ascension in images or stained glass windows in a church or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The Ascension depicted in the East Window in Saint Seiriol’s Church at Penmon Priory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The East Window, Saint Seiriol’s Church, Penmon Priory:

This morning (21 May 2023) I am looking at images of the Resurrection in Saint Seiriol’s Church at Penmon Priory, outside Beaumaris, on the island of Anglesey.

Penmon is one of the earliest Christian sites in Wales. Saint Seiriol’s Church at Penmon may be part of the oldest remaining Christian building in Wales. According to tradition, a community grew up at Penmon around a monastery (clas) established in the early sixth century by Saint Seiriol on land provided by his brother, Saint Einion, King of Llyn.

Two friends, Saint Seiriol and Saint Cybi, founded monasteries at opposite ends of Anglesey. Saint Cybi’s monastery was on the north-west tip of the Anglesey at the heart of what is now Holyhead, whose Welsh name Caergybi recalls the saint. Saint Seiriol set up his monastery at Penmon, at the eastern tip of the island.

According to folklore, these two saints met weekly near Llanerchymedd, near the centre of the island. Saint Cybi would walk from Holyhead, facing the rising sun in the morning and the setting sun in the evening. Saint Seiriol, travelling in the opposite direction, had the sun to his back during his journey. And so they were known as Cybi the Dark, because he was tanned on his journey, and Seiriol the Fair.

Although Saint Seiriol later moved offshore to a hermitage on Puffin Island, Saint Seiriol’s Monastery prospered and grew in size. By the 10th century, the monastery had a wooden church building, and two crosses that probably stood at the entrance to the monastery complex.

After Penmon was destroyed in Viking raids in 971, the church was rebuilt in stone, and Penmon survived the initial Norman invasion of Gwynedd between 1081 and 1100, when it was defended by Prince Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd.

During the 12th century, the Priory Church was rebuilt in stone under Gruffudd ap Cynan and Owain Gwynedd in 1120-1123, and the oldest parts of the Priory Church today date from 1140. This is the most complete building of its age in north-west Wales.

In the 13th century, under Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, the monasteries in Wales were reorganised under the Augustinian rule. Penmon became an Augustinian priory, the church was enlarged and new conventual buildings were built.

Penmon Priory expanded and survived the English conquest of Wales in the reign of Edward I. There are records for the election of Priors back to 1306, when Iowerth the Prior is named.

The dining hall was on the first floor, with a cellar below and dormitory above. In the 16th century, a kitchen and a warming house were added at the east of the building. The eastern range of buildings has gone, but the southern one, containing the refectory with a dormitory above, still stands.

In the period immediately before the Reformation, Penmon Priory was already in decline, and by 1536 the community included only the Prior and two other members. The priory was dissolved in 1538, and the buildings and land became the property of the Bulkeley family of Beaumaris, a prominent local family who used most of the land for a deer park and built the dovecote near the church.

However, the church survived the Reformation and Saint Seiriol’s Church, which was the centrepiece of the monastery, remained in use. Much of the church was rebuilt in 1855, and the chancel now serves as the parish church, while the transepts and nave remain part of the church complex.

Below the church, Saint Seiriol’s Well was believed to have healing powers. It is said that the lower stone walls near the well were part of Saint Seiriol’s church in the sixth century. If so, this would make it the oldest remaining Christian building in Wales.

The three-light East Window in the chancel of Penmon Priory Church dates from 1912. The centre window depicts Christ in glory, holding the chalice and the host, with rays of light emanating from the wounds in his hands and feet. He is surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists.

This window, with its Anglo-Catholic sacramental imagery, was given in 1912 in memory of Henry Owen Williams and his wife Sarah (Holborn) of Tre-Castell, near Beaumaris, by their children. Their children included the Revd Raymond Owen Williams, who was presented to the Vicarage of Fisherton Delamere in Wiltshire by Athelstan Riley (1858-1945), the Anglo-Catholic hymn writer and hymn translator.

In the left side of the window, Sarah Williams is shown with the women and children being blessed by Christ.

In the right side of the window, Henry Williams is depicted in a scene depicting the blessing and distribution of the loaves and fishes.

Fragments of the original East Window in the Priory Church can be seen in a small stained glass window that is the east window of the south transept. This window depicts the Priory’s founder, Saint Seiriol, watching Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river.

The window, with its Anglo-Catholic sacramental imagery, is in memory of Henry and Sarah Owen Williams (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 17: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5 So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’

The chancel in the Priory Church in Penmon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s prayer:

The theme in the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) this week is ‘Accountability and Care.’ USPG’s Research and Learning Advisor, Jo Sadgrove, introduces this theme this morning as she reflects on accountability on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death. She writes:

‘One of the challenges of spending time thinking about history, the past, and our corporate archives is connecting what might seem like other times and different worldviews to present-day activities and concerns. The death of George Floyd remains a stark reminder that patterns of thinking laid down in another time, in the era of transatlantic slavery, persist in the present and continue to perpetuate violence and dehumanisation.

‘Thinking about how the power imbalances of the past continue to exist in the present-day functioning of the Anglican Communion, sometimes perpetuated by agencies like USPG, remains a necessary if uncomfortable part of our work. Whilst USPG no longer trades in human beings, how does its investment portfolio continue to prioritise profit over people? Where does USPG continue to use the security of its financial power to foster dependency rather than agency amongst partner churches who are sometimes reliant on funding?

‘We are members of organisations and institutions with troubling histories. Holding in balance their purpose in the present whilst honouring those who have been marginalised in their pasts through historical analysis is a critical part of our moral accountability and our duty of care to those historically marginalised partner churches whom we seek better to serve.’

The USPG Prayer invites us to pray this morning (Sunday 21 May 2023):

Risen and ascended, Lord,
give us eyes that look with compassion on the world
and hearts that rage at injustice.
Give us breath to raise our voice in protest
and hands and feet that bring life not death,
and, by your grace, make our broken body whole.

Collect:

O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Priory Church in Penmon is the most complete building of its age in north-west Wales (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Sharing experiences of Irish CND activism at a peace history seminar

Sharing experiences of CND activism at this week’s webinar organised by the Irish Network for Nonviolent Action Training and Education

Patrick Comerford

Earlier this week, I took part in the latest INNATE peace history seminars, organised by Rob Fairmichael, editor of Nonviolent News and Coordinator, INNATE, an Irish Network for Nonviolent Action Training and Education.

The INNATE seminar on international peace work in Ireland involved Joe Murray of AfrI, John Lannon of Shannonwatch, Peter Emerson, who was involved in Northern Ireland CND, Sylvia Thompson, who has been involved with Pax Christi, the Diocese of Kerry Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation Committee, and other groups working in the areas of spirituality, biodiversity and inclusion, and myself.

The ‘Zoom’ webinar invited each of us to speak for about 10 minutes about our work in international peace work in the past. As President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, I spoke about my time as chair and also secretary of Irish CND between 1979 and 1984.

CND was active in Ireland from 1959, but went into abeyance in the mid-1960s. I was involved in relaunching Irish CND in 1979 and it remains active today. Northern Ireland CND was re-formed in 1981, but went into abeyance in the 1990s, although there are still CND members in Northern Ireland.



In my short contribution, I recalled Irish CND’s origins and inspiration in the late 1970s from the Carnsore Point sit-ins, the failed actions in organising protests on behalf of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), lobbying around the second special session on disarmament of the UN General Assembly, my student days in Japan, including a visit to Hiroshima, and the support of a half-dozen remaining CND members in Ireland.

Irish CND organised at the time Cruise, Pershing and SS-20 missiles were being deployed on Continental Europe and at the time of the Reagan and Bush visits to Ireland. The movement grew spontaneously, with branches in every city and major town throughout Ireland, on every university campus, and saw the formation of Trade Union CND, Women’s CND, Student CND and Christian CND.

I shared stories about the packed-out theatre in Liberty Hall for a showing of Peter Watkins’s move The War Game and of the CND visitors turning up unexpectedly at the Ronald Reagan pub in Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary.

Perhaps the major success of the time was the story of the women’s peace camp at Greenham Common. The camp was not created by CND, and the Irish women in CND who became involved were criticised even within Irish CND. But they were successful, and nonviolent direct action can work: there are no Cruise missiles there today, and Greenham Common is open, public space once again.

Even before my involvement in CND, Rob and I were involved in the Dawn group, producing Dawn magazine, an Irish journal of nonviolent activism. Following the demise of the Dawn group, INNATE – an Irish Network for Nonviolent Action Training and Education – was set up in 1987 and has produced Nonviolent News newssheet since 1990.

Nonviolent News has been monthly since 1994, and is a source of information on different groups and events; all issues are online https://innatenonviolence.org/.

The ugly truth about neo-Nazis at the Capitol and why Trump says he loves the protesters

The ugly face of the far-right in Washington last week

Patrick Comerford

I sat up late into the night, watching the impeachment vote in Congress, and President Trump’s later egregious video from the White House.

I noticed, like many, that Trump’s video last night not only made no reference to his impeachment – a vote he cannot say was stolen – but how he still refuses to show any sense of responsibility or remorse for last week’s treasonous insurrection in Washington DC and the storming of the Capitol.

The responses have been interesting when I have referred to Trump in recent days in my blog postings or on social media.

One comment posted earlier this month read: ‘Trump is the greatest president of my lifetime. It is shocking how many erudite individuals such as yourself haven’t bothered to find out the truth about this man and why millions and millions of Americans love and support him ... Please show some curiousity (sic) about who Trump really is, why he was elected, the forces he is fighting, and why we love him and his family so much.’

And he (or she) goes on and on … He knows who I am but hid behind the pseudonym ‘Liberty.’ I do not know who he is, and he has not returned since last week’s riots to speak about truth or about love.

So, I thought I might just show how, as one ‘erudite individual,’ I have bothered to find out about this man and the many people who marched to his orders in Washington last week, those forces he is fighting with though not against.

One of the many horrifying images among the mob that went on the rampage last week shows a long-haired, long-bearded man wearing a black ‘Camp Auschwitz’ hoodie with the SS skull and crossbones.

In smaller letters is the phrase ‘Work Brings Freedom’ – a rough translation of the slogan Arbeit macht frei above the gates into Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. The back of his hoodie said ‘Staff.’ He has been identified as Robert Keith Packer, and was arrested in Virginia yesterday.

Some reports of the riot include a photograph of a ‘Proud Boys’ protester wearing a T-shirt with the initials ‘6MWE’ above yellow symbols of Italian Fascism. The slogan is an acronym for ‘Six Million Wasn’t Enough’ – a chilling reference to the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

It now appears, after fact-checking, that the image is from a Proud Boys protest last month rather than from last week. But it reveals the disgusting ideology at the heart of the Proud Boys movement.

A Proud Boys protester … not at the Capitol last week, but showing his true colours and the company Trump keeps

The Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters are among the more prominent violent far-right groups that were prominent in last week’s rally addressed by Trump and in the mayhem that followed.

During a presidential debate in September, Trump told the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by.’

Prominent Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis were part of the Capitol mob, and some Twitter users said their symbols included a swastika, although this has not been verified. The mob who wreaked havoc in Washington last week brought Nazi paraphernalia, Confederate flags, nooses and other hate signs into the Capitol.

The slogans and numerals displayed by Trump’s supporters on flags, signs and clothing included codes drawn from a variety of conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies shared on the far-right.

The slogan ‘America First’ has been used by Trump to summarise his foreign policy. But his use of this slogan has been criticised by the ADL, pointing out that it origins are in anti-Semitic demands to keep the US out of World War II.

Several members of the mob wore or carried signs invoking the QAnon conspiracy theory, which is laced with anti-Semitism and false allegations that a Democrat-run cabal of paedophiles is plotting to harvest the blood of children and take down Trump. In reference to this, one woman in last week’s riotous protests carried a sign saying, ‘The children cry out for justice.’

Other protesters carried a Confederate battle flag into the Capitol building, and a noose – a symbol of racist violence – was placed outside. In one instance, after members of the mob destroyed camera equipment from the Associated Press and made a noose out of the cords.

Other flags bore the phrase ‘when tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty’ – a version of a quote dubiously attributed to Thomas Jefferson – and the Roman numeral III.

The numeral ‘III’ is the logo of the Three Percenters, also known as the III% militia. But, as 1-11, this is a numeric symbol for the Aryan Knights, a white supremacist group inspired by the ‘Aryan’ ideology the Nazis: giving numerical symbols to letters, 1 and 11 mean A and K, the Aryan Knights.

The symbol 109/110 also appeared last week. The figure 109 is white supremacist numeric shorthand for the number of countries anti-Semites claim Jews have been expelled from. In calling for the expulsion of Jews from the US, they often refer to the US as the 110th.

In the same way, 13/52 and 13/90 are numeric codes used by white supremacists who claim that Blacks make up 13% of the US population but commit 52% of all murders and 90% of all violent interracial crime.

Another flag used by the mob shows a coiled snake above the phrase ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ The ‘Gadsden flag’ was used by Jerad and Amanda Miller, who killed two police officers and a civilian in the Las Vegas shootings in 2014.The Millers reportedly placed the Gadsden Flag on the corpse of one of the police officers they killed.

The Gadsden flag was draped around the shoulders of Rosanne Boyland when she trampled to death during the riots last week.

Other symbols include mediaeval helmets, knights’ weapons and symbols linked with the Crusaders and Templars, supposedly harkening back to an era when white, Christian warriors slaughtered Muslims and Jews.

An ‘intactivist’ protester in front of the Supreme Court in Washington last October

Anti-circumcision activists, also known as ‘intactivists,’ support banning all forms of circumcision and often use anti-Jewish imagery. An ‘intactivist’ comic book, ‘Foreskin Man,’ portrays blonde Aryan superheroes fighting Jewish mohels or ritual circumcisers.

The images and slogans used by an ‘intactivist’ protester in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington last October were seen in Washington DC last week. Some protesters carried signs reading ‘circumcision is the mark of the beast of satan’ and ‘outlaw satan’s circumcision.’

The Oath Keepers try to recruit members from among active or retired military, first responders and the police.

These are some of the people who travelled to Washington last week to support Trump and who were encouraged by him to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.

These extremists hope to trigger what they call the ‘Great Revolution,’ based on a fictionalised account of a government takeover and race war in which Jews would be exterminated.

The anonymous ‘Q’ has approvingly retweeted the anti-Semitic image of a knife-wielding Jew wearing a Star of David necklace, standing knee-deep in the blood of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Ukrainians. In recent days, QAnon has targeted the Jewish billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros, portraying him the primary figure shaping and controlling world events. A century ago, the Rothschilds, a family of Jewish bankers, were depicted in the same way.

QAnon members and other far-right activists regularly mark Jews with triple parentheses, a covert means of outing those they identify as usurpers, outsiders, and not true members of the white race. But the three brackets on each side add up to six, another reference to the six million victims of the Holocaust.

Kyle Chapman, a leader of the Proud Boys, recently threatened to ‘confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization.’ The West, he explained ‘was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.’ He uses the term ‘white genocide’ as a shorthand way of claiming the white population in the US will soon be overwhelmed. A popular white supremacist slogan, konw as the ‘14 words’ and seen on signs outside the Capitol last week, says ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’

Many of these symbols, slogans and flags have been analysed in a widely-published essay by Professor Jonathan D Sarna of Brandeis University, a scholar of American anti-Semitism, and they have been explained in detail on the websites of the World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League.

He points out how the slogan ‘white genocide’ comes from a larger document, ‘The White Genocide Manifesto,’ drawn up by David Lane, one of the conspirators behind the murder of the Jewish radio host Alan Berg in 1984. The manifesto also blames what it calls the ‘Zionist occupation governments of America’ for homosexuality and abortion.

QAnon followers, the Proud Boys and the other far-right groups prominent in Washington last week, believe they are living out the great fantasy played out in The Turner Diaries, a 1978 dystopian novel, by William Luther Pierce. The novel depicts the violent overthrow of the US government, nuclear conflagration, race war and the ultimate extermination of non-whites and ‘undesirable racial elements among the remaining white population.’

Seyward Darby pointed out in The New York Times last week that the gallows erected at the Capitol recalls the novel’s depiction of ‘the day of the rope,’ when so-called betrayers of their race were lynched. Professor Sarna points out that Darby could have gone on to refer to the way the novel subsequently depicts ‘a war to the death with the Jew.’

The book warns Jews that their ‘day is coming.’ When it does, at the novel’s conclusion, mass lynchings and a takeover of Washington set off a worldwide conflagration. Within a few days, ‘the throat of the last Jewish survivor in the last kibbutz and in the last, smoking ruin in Tel Aviv had been cut.’

The use of the The Turner Diaries and the anti-Semitic images from the Capitol last week are timely reminders of the place Jews hold in the intentions of the mob beloved by Trump.

I described last week’s events in Washington as ‘a planned coup attempt, to be compared with Hitler in Munich.’ I asked, ‘Why has Trump not been arrested for sedition and armed rebellion? He talked this up, rallied the mob, and must be jailed.’

One response from Ireland said, ‘It only gets better for the American people. They now have 4 years of a Marxist President with Biden. Biden is pro abortion pro gay marriage and wants to water down the church. Biden is vile.’ The conspiracy theories have their advocates in Ireland too.

In his first statements on the violence, Trump called on his supporters to be peaceful, but still lauded them as ‘very special,’ adding that ‘we love you.’

‘What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not silence one another,’ he said in last night’s video. ‘All of us can choose by our actions to rise above the rancour and find common ground and shared purpose.’

This jibe is on a par with telling an abused wife to find common ground with a violent husband, or telling a Jew in Auschwitz to find common ground with the camp guards. Compromising with the Nazis and meeting them half-way would have sent three million Jews to the gas chambers. There can be no common ground, no compromise with Nazis; we must always speak out against racism and hate-speech and expose the motives and plans of those who spout it out.

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize-winning author of Night, said, ‘We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’

The World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League have decoded the coded letters and numerals used by the far-right