Read the latest from St Mary's Church

A Churchwarden writes: A Jubilee jamboree and a Right Royal discussion

St Mary's has been looking back on an extraordinary Jubilee holiday weekend, which saw nearly 800 visitors come through our doors to explore all the iconic town church has to offer over the four days, as many as we get in three weeks usually.

As the bellringers rang from the tower for the beacon lighting on the  Thursday, a churchwarden ventured up onto the roof to take some photos of the event from a unique vantage point! 

We also held a memorable cross-parish service to celebrate the life of our Monarch, which was enjoyed by a large congregation including the Queen's representative in Hertfordshire.

You can catch up with it if you missed it, and enjoy the superb combined choir of our Parish churches singing together some of the Coronation music, hymns such as Jerusalem and an address from Bishop Graham Knowles, all on our YouTube channel.

The following week our 'Churches Together' evening discussion group was led by our own Kate Middleton- no relation - but a Very Important Person to us,

Dr Kate is our priest in training. She helped us to look at the context of the Jubilee, what does the Queen's title 'Defender of the Faith' mean, the Monarch's role as governor of the Church of England?

The conversation was varied and fascinating, regarding the balance between duty, law, politics and the value of the established church through schools, chaplaincy and community support across the country, with the need for integrity and considering future Monarchs who might not share the Queen's inspiring personal faith. 

The speakers were Rev Stephen Coleman, Vicar of St Peter's Church Grange Park, Sub Dean of Enfield Deanery and Assistant Director of the Centre for Law and Religion and Archdeacon Jane Mainwaring, formerly of this Parish at St Mark's Church and now at St Albans Diocese.

The title 'Defender of The Faith' or in Latin Fidei Defensor, has been held by the sovereign of England ever since it was conferred  to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X on Oct 11 1521 - this was a reward for his paper challenging Martin Luther. When in 1530 Henry subsequently broke away from the papacy, Pope Paul III took the title away from him - but parliament restored it just over a decade later (1543/44 depending on what you read), now referring specifically to the Anglican faith, and it has been declared over successors to the throne, who are also the supreme governors of that Anglican Church, ever since.

It is sufficiently central to the role of Monarch that if you take a coin out of your pocket you will find F.D or FID DEF written alongside the image of the Queen (this has been the case since 1714, thanks to George I). Defender of the faith isn't used across the whole commonwealth, just in Canada, New Zealand and the UK - though . Interestingly  as Canada doesn't have a state faith they choose to interpret it as defender of faith in general.  

In 1953 therefore, the Queen was anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and took her oath to "maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England". But in a previous jubilee address the Queen has said that she considers the role not to be defending Anglicanism 'to the exclusion of other religions' but to be about the church's duty to 'protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.

The society meets again on July 10 at 630pm, considering 'coming to belief' - journey's to faith with speakers bringing perspectives from different faiths and generations. 

As well as our regular morning services, this week, at 5pm we have our Sunday early evening service, including our Jubilee Film, where you can see the highlights of the historic weekend and our footage from the tower.

LIVESTREAMED Services on Sundays are available to watch live at 10am, 6.30 pm or anytime afterwards on our Youtube channel available on this link: https://www.youtube.com/c/stmaryshitchin

Further updated details of our services, opening times and events are found on our public Facebook page @StMarysChurchHitchin    .

Further information is found on our website:

https://www.stmaryshitchin.co.uk/

You can follow us on the following platforms:

Instagram  stmaryschurch_hitchin

https://twitter.com/stmaryshitchin_

https://twitter.com/@stmarysBFL

…