The Bishop of London preached at the Mercers’ Company Thomas Becket Service as part of Becket Week. The service was held in Mercers’ Hall in Cheapside, the birthplace of Thomas Becket, and was attended by the president and deputy prime minister of Hungary, as well as senior members of the Hungarian clergy.
Becket week is an ecumenical series of events organised by the Hungarian government during which a fragment of bone believed to be from Thomas Becket was returned to England from Hungary for the first time in more than 800 years.
In his address the Bishop spoke about “some of the significant reverberations of the former archbishop’s murder as it was communicated throughout Europe and not least in Hungary”.
Following the service members attended a lunch in honour of St Thomas Becket and listened to László Kiss-Rigó, Bishop of Szeged-Csanád, discussing the Saint’s veneration in Hungary.
"Very close to this spot in 1120, a child was born to a Norman merchant and his wife, Gilbert and Matilda. It was St Thomas’s day and the child was baptised the same evening."
