Some chronology for John Joseph Ray -- 1977


My Crepe Myrtles in blossom



York and the North

On our way up to Scotland, Joy and I drove through Northern England but I guess we did not stop to see any beauty spots so it all made very little impression on me except for York.

York is very pretty even though it is a bit of a tourist trap but the old city walls and low (5'?) doorways really were redolent of antiquity.

York was of course an urban centre even in Roman times İİ "Eboracum", the Romans called it. The Archbishop of York in fact still signs his name as "Ebor".

York Minster was impressive too. I saw it in 1977. Later, in 1984, it was used for the consecration of Prof. David Jenkins as Bishop of Durham, one of the more important bishoprics of the Church of England.

Before his installation, Jenkins was incautious enough to admit on national TV what would in fact have been a common view among the essentially atheist Church of England episcopate -- that he did not believe in the literal truth of the resurrection, which is widely seen as the most central doctrine of the Christian faith.

As a result, enraged Church of England lay people demonstrated outside York Minster during the Jenkins "consecration" and three days later the cathedral was struck by lightning and badly damaged by the resulting fire.

It was a great shame that such a beautiful old building was damaged but if I were a Christian I would have seen it as a rather appropriate divine response to the installation of a sacrilegious archbishop.

I seem to recollect that the Archbishop of York at the time (Habgood?) was also fairly "modern" and as York Minster is of course the archiepiscopal seat, perhaps the divine lightning bolt was doubly inspired!



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