Thoughts On My Pilgrimage to Britain

We travel for many different reasons:
entertainment, education, curiosity, interest in history or geography or archeology or art, or seeking after some personal development such as a deeper spiritual understanding of our place in the world. “Pilgrimage” falls into that last category.

I have been on a number of pilgrimage-styled trips and each has impacted me in some way.

• The Holy Land: a greater understanding of the Gospels and the life of Christ.
• Anatolia (present day Turkey) and Italy: a greater understanding of the New Testament and the early church.
• Russia: learning about the saints of Russia and the iconography of the the Orthodox Church.

In each of these places, I was an outsider, an observer, looking back into history from a present day perspective. My trip Britain in September of ‘24 is of a different character for me. This time I was discovering the places of my own ancestors, their mindsets and priorities, their Christian faith.

Almost all of my ancestors came from the British Isles. They were survivors of the Viking raids (8th-11thC), the Norman Invasion (1066), and of the numerous plagues, including the Black Death in the mid 1300s that killed 40-60% of the population over several decades.

They encountered the Christian faith when it was brought by the Roman occupation between 43-410 (St Alban was the first Christian martyr, in the late 200s). They embraced the Christian faith as promoted by saints I knew and many I did not know: Saints Ninian (432), Columba (597), Aiden (651), Oswald (642), the brothers Chad and Cedd (died late 600s), Wilfred (672), Hilda (680), Cuthbert (687), Benedict Biscop (689), Theodore (690), Guthlac (714), Frideswide (730), Bede (735), Edmond (861, patron Saint of England), Edward (978).

Some of these saints manifest the same features of Orthodox saints I have read about, such as incorrupt bodies after centuries (Cuthbert), heavenly announcements when they died (Hilda), or miracles from their relics (before they were destroyed by Henry VIII). Their burial sites became places of pilgrimage, with monasteries growing up around their crypts. In fact, there were many monasteries in Britain, sometimes just a days walk apart. There were isolated hermitages (St Cuthbert at Inner Farne), and Anchorite cells attached to churches. The Libraries were renowned, with books brought from Rome and hand copied in the scriptoriums, with new and beautiful illuminations (Book of Kells and Lindesfarne Gospels are just the tip of the iceberg!).

The Protestant Reformation (1560s) did great violence to the monasteries, relics, art, and treasures of the church, though undoubtedly reformation was needed. On our trip, we sought out the few bits of art left from before the destruction, the few undisturbed places with pre-Norman churches, and the few places where the bodies of the saints were not destroyed. We got a taste of the earliest expression of the Christian faith in Britain, in art and architecture, of the things valued and honored.

Of the places I’ve visited on pilgrimage, two have been overrun by Muslims (Holy Land and Turkey), one has become the ultimate place of Catholicism (Italy), one received Christianity
around the year 1000 (Russia). Britain was a place where Christianity arrived very early and the core faith was never abandoned, although the Protestant Reformation thoroughly and broadly
transformed it into what we see today, erasing much of the earlier artistic expressions of faith. 

All of the churches we visited are still living parishes, even the largest ones:

• Canterbury Cathedral
• Yorkminster Abbey
• St Albans Cathedral
• Durham Cathedral.

They have found additional ways to financially support these large places, such as hosting concerts and silent discos (where participants wear headphones and dance to the music they are hearing), and becoming tourist destinations with entrance fees. But a parish community still exists. In the smaller churches they find other ways to raise funds beyond the dwindling contributions of parishioners: Bede’s Bakery, bookstores, selling tea towels. But they all had lovingly made needlepoint kneelers, handmade things personal to the church, and cared-for cemeteries (even if it was grazing sheep who kept the grass down). Our British friend tells us the Christian faith is ebbing away across the country. But unlike the medieval churches we saw in the Netherlands that have been wholly abandoned to become art museums, venues for receptions, or playgrounds (a swing from the ceiling), these British churches still maintain a connection to the Christian faith.

What touched me personally was learning of the culture of pilgrimage. Built into the mind of the early British people was to seek out holy places and do the work of getting there. Does
this explain my own desire to visit holy places, is it in my DNA? And very touching is just how long the Christian faith, as “Orthodox” as all the other places where Christianity was
spreading, has been a part of this society; clearly from the 400s forward but also likely earlier. This is longer than in Russia, and perhaps compares to Italy. I also learned that the prayers of the Orthodox Church really do help me to bring a saint forward in a way I cannot do with just my own imagination or knowledge.

We journey on a pilgrimage, both the inner and outer pilgrimage, alongside other pilgrims, just like in the Canterbury Tales. We tell each other of the things important to us like loosing a child or struggling in a job. We certainly can differ in political persuasions and economic backgrounds. Some of us are bawdy and irreverent, some quiet and prayerful. I definitely enjoyed having a gin and tonic alongside some of my fellow pilgrims on several occasions! But we all together made up a body of Christians searching for deeper spiritual understanding of
our place in the world.

Finally, I loved discovering the “Green Man” in these English churches. Somehow it captures the earthy essence of the Christian world in early Britain. Clever, curious, funny or even scary, they were carved in wood on the arms of the quire stalls (where they might be touched), or up on the ceilings (where they send some warning to pay attention); both places understanding the human mind that wanders. It’s a figure that has been embraced by modern paganism, but when found in the medieval setting of St Frideswide’s reliquary, that seems ridiculous! According to Josh Robinson in his article Green Men in the Church on the Symbolic World website, the Golden Legend from the 1200s helps shed light why vines proceeding from a mouth is so compelling. It represents the renewal of life, and paganism’s transformation when it encounters the cross of Christ.

https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/content/green-men-in-the-church-the-old-lore-of-the green-man

And so I also look to be transformed when I encounter the cross of Christ. Which is why I travel in the first place!