A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Such then were the offices connected with the consecration of churches in primitive times. Bishops, from distant provinces, with a vast concourse of clergy and laity, were present; an appropriate sermon or sermons were preached; the holy eucharist was always administered; in the course of which prayers suitable to the occasion were offered. Of these prayers one is still preserved in the writings of St. Ambrose.

On this model it was that the consecration services of the Church Catholic were formed, each church, at first, varying in non-essentials, as circumstances may have required.

In the English Church, various records of very early date exist relating to the consecration of churches. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who professes to follow Gildas, says that in the time of King Lucius (A. D. 162) pagan temples were consecrated in Britain to the honour of the true God. And we find from Bede, that the passage just quoted from Eusebius was applicable to our own island. It is known that Bertha, wife of Ethelbert, king of Kent, repaired or rebuilt a church, first built by the Romans, and had it dedicated to the honour of St. Martin of Tours, an eminent saint among the Christians of her native country. This was the church granted by Ethelbert to Augustine, on his landing in the isle of Thanet, A. D. 596. Some time after his arrival, Gregory the Great sent Augustine particular instructions about the dedication of the temples of the Anglo-Saxons; and when the bishop had his episcopal see assigned him in the royal city, he recovered therein a church, which he was informed had been built by the ancient Roman Christians, and consecrated it in the name of our holy Saviour, God and Lord, Jesus Christ. From the same historian we learn, that Laurentius, Augustine’s successor in the primacy, consecrated a church to St. Peter and St. Paul, afterwards called St. Augustine’s, in honour of Augustine, who had commenced building it. Mellitus, who succeeded Laurentius, consecrated the church of the Holy Mother of God, built by King Eadbald, A. D. 622. There is a detailed account of the consecration of the church of Ripon, by Wilfrid, archbishop of York, A. D. 665, given in the Life of that prelate, written by Eddius and Fridegode. Numerous subsequent canons are found, bearing on the same subject. For instance, one of Archbishop Ecgbriht’s “Excerptions,” A. D. 740, relates to the consecration of churches. In Archbishop Wilfrid’s canons, A. D. 816, it is ordered:

“When a church is built, let it be consecrated by the bishop of its own diocese, according to the ministerial book.”

Again, in the canons of Archbishop Corboyl, A. D. 1126, in the canons at Westminster, A. D. 1138, and in Archbishop Richard’s canons, A. D. 1175, similar injunctions are given.

From the constitutions of Otho, A. D. 1237, it would appear—so unfounded is the boast of the Romanists, that the time when Popery was dominant in England was a period of reverence and devotion never since known to her Church—that this solemnity was then much neglected. This is evident from the first of these canons, which, after observing that the dedication of royal temples is known to have taken its beginning from the Old Testament, and was observed by the holy fathers in the New Testament, under which it ought to be done with the greater care and dignity, &c., goes on to enact,

“That because we have ourselves seen, and heard by many, that so wholesome a mystery is despised, at least neglected, by some, (for we have found many churches, and some cathedrals, not consecrated with holy oil though built of old,) we, therefore, being desirous to obviate so great a neglect, do ordain and give in charge, that all cathedrals, conventual and parochial churches, which are ready built, and their walls perfected, be consecrated by the diocesan bishops, to whom they belong, or others authorized by them, within two years: and let it so be done in a like time in all churches hereafter to be built; and lest so wholesome a statute grow into contempt, if such like places be not dedicated within two years from the time of their being finished, we decree them to remain interdicted from the solemnization of masses until they be consecrated, unless they be excused for some reasonable cause.”

In the constitutions of Othobon, A. D. 1268, there is a similar canon.

From these canons it is plain, that the office of consecration had contracted many of those Romish superstitions which were retained until the Reformation. Not that our reformers, when reforming the other services of the Church, extended their labours to that of consecration. Indeed, as that was a period, to use the words of Bishop Short, when more churches were destroyed than built, there was no immediate use for the service in question. This task was reserved for Bishop Andrews, whose service was compiled, as were all the offices of the English Church, from the formularies in use before the Reformation.

Unanswerable as was Hooker’s defence of the consecration of churches, it was insufficient to protect Laud from the clamour of his implacable enemies, when he consecrated St. Catherine Cree church, as bishop of London, in 1630. And in the well-known London petition, presented to the Long Parliament, by the notorious Alderman Pennington, about ten years later, the consecration of churches was not forgotten to be included “among the manifold evils, pressures, and grievances, caused, practised, and occasioned by the prelates and their dependants.”