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This month, as we approach Easter, the Feast of the Resurrection, what better place to look at briefly than the Church of the Resurrection at Mirfield?
The Community of the Resurrection was founded in the last years of the nineteenth century, its founder members being Charles Gore and Walter Frere. The principle behind the foundation was to bring back to the Anglican Church the ideal of a monastic life with priests and lay brothers living a corporate life and bound by the traditional vows associated with monastic orders, although in the case of the Community of the Resurrection the vow was a yearly promise and it was not until 1945 that the traditional monastic vows were adopted.
The first members of the Community of the Resurrection did something rather daring. Instead of basing their order in the remote traditional countryside setting they decided to move to the industrial north of England and so they built their mother church at Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The Church of the Resurrection, now a listed building, is on the brow of a hill and overlooking the industrial town of Mirfield. It was built from locally quarried stone and finished off with Byzantine-style copper roofs which are now green. The ground floor became the main church with the High Altar and the brethren’s pews in front of it. Behind was the Chapel of the Resurrection and throughout the building were side altars to enable each of the ordained brethren to celebrate the Eucharist every morning. Underneath all this was the chapel of the College of the Resurrection, the main college building being separate on the twenty-two acre site.
The life of the Community revolved round the daily routine of worship in the main church. Starting at Prime, the brethren observed the short services of Terce, Sext and None as well as Matins, the Mass, Evensong and finally finishing late at night with Compline and this was the way of life which was celebrated in all the Community’s houses, in Leeds, in South Africa and in the West Indies and it seemed as though it would go on for ever. But of course times change and the Community of the Resurrection, like monastic communities in both the Anglican and Roman Churches, saw a decline in numbers and now the Community of the Resurrection has only Mirfield as its base with far fewer professed brothers than fifty years ago.
Many religious communities found it difficult to change and vanished from the scene. Mirfield however was about resurrection and there has been a resurrection in both the purpose and style of the life at Mirfield. The community is now much more open and the same is true of the college. Their outlook now is the Christian community and wider community and Mirfield is becoming a centre of Christian activity, learning and outreach.
These changes can be seen in the Church of the Resurrection which I knew from parish visits as a schoolboy and later as a student in the college. But that was fifty and more years ago and the Church of the Resurrection I knew and which is shown in the two indoor photos has gone forever. The building is now much more open, the many side chapels and different levels in the main church have gone. In their place is a large, open space more in keeping with modern worship than was the old church. I haven’t seen the new set-up but from photos and videos it looks different and it will take some getting used to. But the changes were made to provide a church and centre for the twenty-first century whilst sticking to the Gospel and the Church’s teachings. It has been, and still is, a mammoth task but an appropriate task for a church and community with the Resurrection as its foundation.
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