‘Turbulent Priests’
The Revds. Fletcher Sheridan Le Fanu and Samuel Randal Sproule Colquhoun, Vicars of St John’s between 1900 and 1960, were ‘High Churchmen’. During their turbulent incumbencies, services were conducted (and still are) with High Church ritual and ceremony using incense, bells, elaborate vestments, altar servers and sung liturgy.
This Anglican Catholic tradition and liturgy were to lead to years of contention, disturbance and cases before the civil and ecclesiastical courts taken by those who viewed St John’s as deviating from the canons and rubrics set out in the Book of Common Prayer.
Some were fearful of losing their Protestant identity as a consequence of Disestablishment and of becoming submerged into a State dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. They chose to exert whatever pressure necessary to ensure that not even the slightest element of Anglican worship could be confused with the worshipping practices of Roman Catholicism.
This online presentation focuses on the resulting clashes between supporters and opponents of St John’s during those years. Religion was big news in those days and St John’s was rarely out of the newspapers.
The Revds. Fletcher Sheridan Le Fanu and Samuel Randal Sproule Colquhoun, Vicars of St John’s between 1900 and 1960, were ‘High Churchmen’. During their turbulent incumbencies, services were conducted (and still are) with High Church ritual and ceremony using incense, bells, elaborate vestments, altar servers and sung liturgy.
This Anglican Catholic tradition and liturgy were to lead to years of contention, disturbance and cases before the civil and ecclesiastical courts taken by those who viewed St John’s as deviating from the canons and rubrics set out in the Book of Common Prayer.
Some were fearful of losing their Protestant identity as a consequence of Disestablishment and of becoming submerged into a State dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. They chose to exert whatever pressure necessary to ensure that not even the slightest element of Anglican worship could be confused with the worshipping practices of Roman Catholicism.
This online presentation focuses on the resulting clashes between supporters and opponents of St John’s during those years. Religion was big news in those days and St John’s was rarely out of the newspapers.
Fr Fetcher Sheridan Le Fanu © RCB Library MS711.11.1
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Fr Samuel Randal Sproule Colquhoun © RCB Library
MS 711.11.1
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