O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
T.S. Eliot
(The Wasteland – III. The Fire Sermon)
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Nice to know that Fr is also an insomniac :)
St. Magnus Martyr is a spectacular church still — I visited there about three years ago.
Thank the Lord Ezra Pound was around to help Eliot clean up The Wasteland. I can’t remember the number of times he forced Eliot to re-write this section, including one time where he sent he manuscript back to Eliot with a big NO! written across the pages.
Give me David Jones over Eliot any day.
It used to be an Anglican Papalist stronghold. Does it now have women clergy?
For a taste of its current status see http://anglicanexfide.blogspot.com/
To add to what Flabellum posted, when I was there, there were a number of places where it was stated that this church is Anglo-Catholic. I’m still not quite sure what that means. But when I entered the church, I thought I was in a Catholic church, not an Anglican establishment. The photo on the anglicanexfide site is a very good one of the interior of the church.
I was a little taken aback during my walk around the inside to see the statue of the patron saint of the church wearing a Viking helmet, complete with horns!
“Anglo-Catholic” covers a wide range of opinions on many matters these days (and I speak as one). I believe St. Magnus is one of those places which “would not accept a woman as the minister who presides at or celebrates the Holy Communion or pronounces absolution” to quote the relevant Measure.
As a building it benefits from having been re-ordered when Baroque was the height of fashion among Anglo-Catholics, which of course blends well with Wren’s building.
Incidentally, refreshing my memory before posting, I found the “inexplicable splendour” line quoted as being from Old London Churches by E. and W. Wayland Young (1909)
Yes, the parish is a classic Anglo-Catholic church. Have a look at the magnificent shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in their virtual tour:
http://www.stmagnusmartyr.org.uk/
Incidentally, T.S. Eliot was the Church Warden at Saint Stephen’s, Gloucester Rd. This is also an Anglo-Catholic church well worth visiting when in London.
http://saint-stephen.org.uk/tseliot.htm
If you want to see a good picture of the Presiding(Lady) Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA look in the porch of the formerly Anglo-Catholic Church of St Matthew, Westminster. The church is half-way between the Abbey and Westminster Cathedral.