The

Belgravian
THE LORD AND ALAN

Henry Hopwood-Phillips talks to one of Belgravias parish priests, the Reverend

Alan Gyle, about where he thinks the Church is going

hen I was a member of the staff at St

Georges Chapel, Windsor, I told the Dean
I dont want to be a parish priest, the
Reverend Alan Gyle informs me, as I try to touch on the
times he has felt Gods influence clearly. Id been working
in the rarefied atmosphere of Windsor for so long that I was
excited at the prospect of becoming a university chaplain
at Imperial College London. It was not to be, however, as
God (and the Bishop of London) led him to St Pauls on the
marches of Belgravia and Knightsbridge instead.
It is not the most obvious place to end up for a man
who was born a Presbyterian bashing out the same four
hymns each Sunday in Aberdeen. But it was from music that
a theological sensibility grew. A keyboard player and singer
from the age of 14, he studied music at Aberdeen University
and swiftly became aware of different sources of music and
Christianity to the common stock hed been exposed to.
So when the Episcopal Church offered me a position as an
organist, I leapt at the chance, he
explains. The young scholar was
also attracted to the fact that the
Mass permitted colour, incense and
a cacophony of voices. I remember
being amazed that they had a
choir! he recalls.
As we pick up speed, quite a bit of Christian
terminology comes out. The vicar is clearly aware of it,
too, because he reminds me that we can no longer assume
people will actually know any of it. And so he has a
programme in place called Christian formation which
focuses on certain 21st-century issues and places them in
an historical and a Christian context. At the moment the
group is concentrating on the Holy Land.
Not that the Reverend takes for granted the fact that
people will seek out this knowledge from the Church any
more. One of the things he believes has changed during his
lifetime is that the Church used to rely on attendance from
people who believed they ought to go. Now, however, fewer
feel compelled to. Thats not to say there arent still contact
points [such as baptism, marriage and death], but it does
mean we have to work harder, through mission, to bring
these people into the congregation.
I evoke Pope Emeritus Benedict XVIs image that
the Church is returning to the ark, tossed by unfriendly
waters, and suggest that it may simply be returning to the
pre-Constantinian settlement. Yes, thats very perceptive.
Whilst Constantine embedded Christianity in civil life,
creating what we might call Christendom, we are now
at the other end, trying to work out what it means to be
outside the establishment, the vicar responds.
That means travelling to see the beauty of the world
but it also means going to the darker places that challenge

us. He is talking about an impending trip to Auschwitz. Is

he prodding peoples hearts to acknowledge the incidents
when many have felt God wasnt there? Yes, to an extent,
he admits. Many of the great 20th-century theologians felt
the need to respond to the Holocaust, referring to the likes of
Paul Tillich, Jrgen Moltmann and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Talking of dark places, I risk approaching the
vicar on the subject of doubt. He is quite sure all must
question, because if youre not asking, you are dead
from the neck up, he reasons. The dark night of the soul
has a powerful history within the Church, Theres an
immense tradition of silence, emptiness and absence that
forms part of the mystery of the understanding of God.
But the vicar draws his own strength from the
Anglo-Catholic tradition, immediately apparent at St
Pauls in the rood screen and Stations of the Cross. He
attended St Stephens House in Oxford, a college famous
for its high-church heritage. Staggers, people called it,
he smiles, along with Wykkers
[the Protestant Anglicans at
Wykeham College] and Cudders
[Cuddesdon College where
liberal Anglicans study]. We all
used to play what we cruelly
called inter-faith football
matches, which makes it all sound like an A. N. Wilson
sketch: very Wodehousian.
On a serious note, however, the Oxford movement
is the Reverends favourite pillar of the Church. Founded
by men such as Edward Pusey and John Newman, it
was the movement that had St Pauls built in the first
place. They worked to restore the dignity and beauty of
worship and to transform society, he tells me.
Its a transformation that involves getting people to
work together who dont necessarily think alike. Its hard
to get those who think differently to really engage with one
another. Today most people only ever get together to pursue
similar interests, but church isnt like that, the vicar clarifies,
as we laugh over the fact that its popularly seen as vice versa
(that church is for clones and society is for free thinkers).
This puts the Reverend slightly on the defensive and
leads him to insist the Church is not a decaying, fey, distanced
organisation, and his Christmas diary is a timely reminder that
he is right. Listing 17 charity carol concerts, most involving
audiences of more than 850 people (and celebrities), who last
year donated 750,000, as well as his parish events, his hard
work serves as a reminder this Christmas that If you abide in
me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it
will be done for you. (John 15:7)

I told the Dean I dont want

to be a parish priest

St Pauls Church, 32a Wilton Place, SW1X 8SH,

020 7201 9999 (stpaulsknightsbridge.org)

Illustration / Russ Tudor

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