St. John the Evangelist, Sandymount
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      • Charles Philip Coote Cummings
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      • William Percy French
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  • Virtual Culture Night 2020
    • A Church for Sandymount >
      • The Founder & St. John’s High Church Tradition
      • Disestablishment and the Creation of the church of Ireland
      • Turblulent Priests
    • The Revd. F.S. Le Fanu comes to St. John’s >
      • Early Protests at St. John’s
      • Le Fanu v Roberts
      • Le Fanu v Richardson and Others
      • No More Turbluence
    • The Revd. S.R.S. Colquhoun comes to St. John’s >
      • Protests Against Ritual and Ceremony at St. John’s
      • Further Charges against Fr. Colquhoun
      • Suspension November 1937
      • More Allegations
      • The Case of the Crucifix
      • After the Turbulence
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‘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.
Picture
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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