St John Notting Hill hosted a moving ecumenical Vespers service on Sunday 14th September, the Feast of the Holy Cross. This was timed to coincide with the ecumenical Vespers service commemorating twenty first century martyrs taking place in St Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome.
Persecution
The Bishop of Truro’s report of 2019 stated “Christianity is by most calculations the most persecuted religion of modern times.”
The UK Parliament, in receiving the Truro report commented “If one minority is on the receiving end of 80% of religiously motivated discrimination, it is simply not just that they should receive so little attention.”
Martyrdom
Over the past three years, a Vatican commission comprising historians, theologians and other experts has documented the stories of more than 1,600 men and women killed over the past 25 years for being Christian. The head of the commission, Archbishop Fabio Fabene, said: “Martyrdom has existed in every age of the Church, but perhaps now more than in the past, many surrender their lives in order not to betray the message of Christ.”
Of the 1624 cases of the murder of Christians, 643 were killed in Sub-Saharan Africa, 357 in Asia and Oceania, 304 in the Americas, 277 in the Middle East and the Maghreb, and 43 in Europe. These witnesses for the faith came from a wide range of churches – Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant. Full names cannot yet be published as it may put others in danger. The Director of the Commission Dr Riccardi said: “The work of this commission and the ecumenical ceremony on Sunday 14th September show that our Church is still a Church of martyrs and that they have much to teach us.” St John’s Notting Hill has sponsored a motion which was passed by the General Synod of the Church of England that the church should have one ecumenical day of prayer and action for the persecuted and martyred church – those who are persecuted or martyred for the faith belong to our common Christian witness, and it is right that they are commemorated internationally and ecumenically. The issue of Christian persecution and martyrdom receives little or no attention from the mainstream press and media, and this service was intended to address this imbalance and to give concrete reality to the motion of the General Synod. Archbishop Angealos, Coptic Archbishop of London, commented, “It is right and proper that we gather in St John’s today as we commemorate the ecumenism of blood”.
As a physical symbol of persecution of martyrdom, a standing cross in the grounds of the church was blessed.
