Solidarity with Bevis Marks Synagogue

Today Christian clergy from across City of London churches submitted a joint letter of objection to a planning application which would dramatically harm the only non-Christian place of worship in the City, the historic Bevis Marks synagogue.

Believed to be the longest continuous ongoing place of Jewish worship in the world, Bevis Marks is not only a heritage site but a living diverse community in the heart of the City. As near neighbours, the community at St Katharine Cree is working with other religious and civic institutions to oppose the building of an excessively high tower block right next to Bevis Marks.

This development will overshadow the synagogue and block out the sky: it will actually constrain Jewish religious freedom of worship at the synagogue by preventing the reciting of prayers at the appearance of the new moon, the Kiddush Levanah. As leaders of civic and religious institutions in a diverse, international, tolerant city, we are deeply worried by a regressive restriction of freedom of religious practice.

Today, clergy met with Rabbi Morris and members of the community at Bevis Marks and then walked to Guildhall together to hand deliver the letter to a representative of the Corporation. The letter is a submission to the ongoing planning consultation before committee members decide whether to approve the application.

In response to our letter, clergy have been invited to meet with members of the Planning Applications Sub-Committee to discuss our reasons for opposing this development, and to set out the ways in which we - as leaders of religious and civic institutions - want to work constructively with the City to build on its success and support its future prosperity and vitality.

The letter:

Objection to planning application 24/00021/FULEIA

We are writing as Christian clergy within the City of London to express our objection to planning application 24/00021/FULEIA affecting Bury House and Holland House in Aldgate.

We share the developer’s aspirations to ensure that any development in the neighbourhood builds up local business, invests in the local community and contributes to the City of London Corporation’s Climate Action Strategy. However, the proposed development in its current form does not account for the harmful impacts of an inappropriately tall and imposing building in this location. In particular, the reasonable concerns of the Jewish community at Bevis Marks Synagogue about this development should be respected. This development would involve harms not only to the setting of a significant and uniquely important Grade 1 listed building and heritage site in the City, but the development would actually constrain the Jewish community’s existing religious practice (by obscuring a specific portion of the sky) at Bevis Marks Synagogue and therefore directly impinge on the community’s current enjoyment of their religious freedom of worship in the City.

As Christian leaders of different communities in the City of London, we know first-hand the value which religious practice and the freedom of religion and belief has in a modern global City. There are diverse people of every faith and no faith who live, work, and worship within the Square Mile – adding new chapters to the City of London’s history of toleration and civility.

Like Bevis Marks Synagogue, our City churches are not only historically significant heritage buildings. Our places of worship are centres for living diverse communities of people who live and work in the City or who visit here as worshippers, pilgrims, and tourists. As we seek to work in good faith to support the Corporation’s aim to develop and enhance the City, we want to work with you to ensure that planning decisions reflect the needs and aspirations of existing communities who have already been contributing to making the City a worthwhile destination for centuries, and who will continue to do so for centuries to come.

We wish to express our deep concern about a potential decision which we fear could undermine the City’s ability to function as a world beating trading and commercial centre and harm its reputation for generosity and respect for all religious communities, itself a blow to the City’s competitiveness.

It is particularly disappointing and concerning that the community directly affected by this application is the only synagogue – indeed, the only dedicated non-Christian house of worship – within the City.

We call on members of the Planning Sub-Committee to reject this application and to work with us to discuss ways in which we can continue to enhance and celebrate the place of our diverse religious and civic communities within the Square Mile as part of our contribution to the shared prosperity and long-term vibrancy of the City.

Will members of the Planning Applications Sub-Committee meet with us to take this conversation forward?

Signed on the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord by the following:

David Armstrong

Rector, St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate

Paul Gismondi

Priest-in-Charge, All Hallows on the Wall

Alanna Harris

Associate Priest, St Katharine Cree

Josh Harris

Priest-in-Charge, St Katharine Cree

Laura Jørgensen

Rector, St Botolph without Aldgate

Paul Kennedy

Rector, St Vedast-alias-Foster

Bertjan van de Lagemaat

Minister of the Dutch Church

Jennifer Midgley-Adam

Curate, All Hallows by the Tower

Jack Noble

Rector, St Giles Cripplegate

Arani Sen

Rector, St Olave Hart Street

Jennifer Smith

Superintendent Minister, Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Mission

Malcolm Torry

Priest-in-Charge, St Mary Abchurch

Chris Vipers

Parish Priest, St Mary Moorfields

Marcus Walker

Rector, Great St Bartholomew

Philip Warner

Rector, St Magnus the Martyr

Taylor Wilton-Morgan

Assistant Priest, Great St Bartholomew

Sermon to the Court of Common Council

As part of his year as Chaplain to the Sheriff of London, Josh preached to the Court of Common Council at a service on St Mark's Day including the Lord Mayor, Alderwomen and Aldermen, and Councillors as well as officers of the Corporation of London, at St Lawrence Jewry.

The reading was 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.

The City of London is a hugely successful common enterprise. As our current Lord Mayor likes to say, it is ‘the world’s oldest democratic workers’ and residents’ cooperative’. And it has produced exceptional riches – not only financial, but historic, cultural, political, for the wider UK and indeed the world.

At the heart of the City is this Corporation. This body of government, made of many parts.

The wards which you represent: each one is shaped by the stories of its people, its distinctive character and contribution to the City. The unique voices of those who live and work and visit your neighbourhoods: these are heard in the City’s deliberations because you represent them.

This takes a lot of listening, a lot of attention, to be a Councillor, or to be an Alderwoman or Alderman. You will know well the temptation to listen only to the voices who soothe our ears, who tell us what we want to hear, who speak like us. But if our listening is partial, we miss the gifts that other parts of the body bring.

Listening is needed because it is too easy otherwise to forget what you here

know better than most: that the City’s success is a shared achievement. The combination of ingenuity and industry which characterises our businesses; the advocacy of our political leaders; the rule of law underpinned by our legal system; the civic and religious institutions who provide the holistic support and community which diverse residents and workers need to thrive.

All playing their part in building our shared prosperity.

This Corporation – this body – is made of many parts who contribute.

The modern City’s success is built on services. But not only the services we think of as a product of the City: legal services, accountancy, consultancy, insurance, and so on. There are as well the other services on which all of us rely each day: cleaners, concierges and security guards, caterers, couriers and cab drivers, baristas, street sweepers and supermarket shelf fillers.

Such service workers underpin our experience of this City as a pleasant and vibrant place to live, work, and enjoy life. But they are more than their function: like so many of us, these workers have come to the City with dreams and hopes, with a hunger for its success and a contribution to make.

The church which I lead, St Katharine Cree, is the Guild Church for Workers, and we provide a space for all workers, of every background and occupation to come together as friends, colleagues, fellow members of the body we to which we together belong. But we have a particular role in supporting service workers to gather to share their stories, to encourage one another, to pray, to build relationships of exchange and mutual respect and trust. Our busiest activities are free English classes for migrant workers so they can take part more in City life. There is an appetite not only to learn the language and get along in work, but to contribute widely, to be recognised and seen and listened to as those with a stake in this place, with a part to play.

We are training people in our community of service workers as leaders, not out of sympathy – although many have been victims of abuse, and face the challenges that first generation migrants often do – but because they are gifted people who are gifts to this body. They are strong, purposeful, full of faith and hope, and have a vision for contributing to our shared success. Perhaps one day some of them might join you as Common Councillors.

Meanwhile, together with other churches and institutions in the City we have begun a season of listening – holding more than one hundred face to face conversations with service workers over the next month – to hear not only their needs but their hopes and dreams for this City, and their part in it, as well. If you would like to be part of this listening process, or to learn what we hear, then let’s talk.

But for now, for today, may we together listen to every member of this body of which we are part, remembering that ‘those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable’, that we might receive the gift they have for us, and we might be open to the gift we need to be to each other.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you in your listening, bless you in your service, and bless you through the others who share in our corporate life together in this City of London.

Amen.

What's the WiFi code?

Revd Josh Harris writes...

Over the past two years of running St Katharine's, people have asked me this with the reasonable expectation that any venue in the City of London would have WiFi. It's like asking where the loo is. It just doesn't make sense to us to not to have an internet connection!

But not only did we not have WiFi - or even a landline phone - when we took on the renewal of this church, but the thick stone walls and the constellation of tall buildings around us conspired to leave a 5G dead zone more or less exactly in our church and hall! We tried a 5G router, but it never really worked.

The problem for us is that we are using the space here to build community among workers and their families in the City, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet. We discovered during Covid that 'data poverty' is a real problem - and this hasn't stopped being an issue for those on low incomes now we are in a hybrid world. Access to the internet is a basic requirement for functioning as a citizen: whether it is a passport application, opening a new bank account, or video calling family in another continent, having decent internet access makes a real difference. So we wanted to be in a position to offer free, high speed internet to anyone in our community who needs it.

But we are also building partnerships with other organisations who run activities here and hold meetings - and we also want to be able to offer this space to many others to use, whether partner organisations or hirers. A trade union lawyer who runs a free employment advice drop in clinic here has bravely contended with weak hotspots and other workarounds for more than a year: I cannot wait to show him what we've done...

This week we have finally completed installation of high speed internet throughout the building! It has taken more than one year for the planning, preparation and works to complete. I feel like I should retire now, as I am not sure what other professional achievement will match this!

Our fibre line is provided by Community Fibre, who were patient and helpful as we navigated (with help from our excellent Archdeacon and the Diocese's property department) the Faculty process for permission. In the end, engineers had to abseil over the roof as part of the process to install a line through a less sensitive part of the building. You would be surprised how many contractors were adamant we should just drill through the main south wall of a Grade 1 listed church to save them some cabling work...

We then had amazing support from the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) who gave us pro bono advice to tender for a company to install the network throughout the building. Ours is a complicated site which means we wanted more than just one or two routers. They helped us find Adrian at Silvercloud Technologies. And then WCIT went above and beyond in also providing us with a substantial grant to pay for the cost of the works!

After much relief that the cabling works were sufficiently discreet and used existing cable runs that we did not need another full faculty, Ken the cabling man and his colleague installed the new system which is now up and running and being remotely monitored by Adrian's team.

We now have super fast guest and staff WiFi networks throughout our church, hall and other rooms. This is going to be a game changer for what we can offer here: both in terms of our own capacity to run an office here and develop actives, but also our ability to provide to workers and our partner organisations a well connected space here in the heart of the City as together we build communities of prayer and action with the workers of London.