Lichfield Cathedral and the relics of Saint Chad: a Laudian view

'Saint's relic returns to cathedral 500 years on' declared The Times on 7th November.  And just so we know who was to blame for that 500 year interruption, "Henry VIII's men" are pointed to as vandals who destroyed the shrine of holy Chad.

That is how the news that Lichfield Cathedral is 'recreating' the shrine of Saint Chad hit the headlines in the UK last week.  One can easily imagine responses from a particular Anglican (and, indeed, non-Anglican) 'angry Protestant' constituency: loud invocations of Article 22 and condemnation of the popish practice of relics.  

This post, by contrast, seeks to give a Laudian response, that is, a peaceable Protestant perspective (remembering that the Apostle exhorts us, "as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men"). To begin with, let us consider the account of the project given on the Lichfield Cathedral website.  There are, it must be admitted, some silly statements on the site that do not help its cause.  To suggest that before the Reformation "there was a single, undivided Church" is not only entirely obscures the significance of 1054AD: it also demeans the witness and theology of our Orthodox brothers and sisters (not to mention the Oriental Orthodox).  

Then we come to this statement:

The Cathedral witnessed defacement and destruction in the 16th and 17th centuries. The relics of St Chad passed into the hands of catholic families after 1538 who protected and preserved them.

One would almost think it was an extract from a Catholic Truth Society publication of the 1950s.  The Reformation in England did, of course, result in significant changes to Lichfield Cathedral.  One might have hoped, however, for something rather more nuanced than "defacement and destruction".  As for the description of "catholic families after 1538" protecting and preserving the relics of Saint Chad, we can be quite sure that the Supreme Governor, clergy, and laity of Lichfield Cathedral - minus the shrine and relics of Chad - after 1559 regarded themselves to be catholic.  

Entirely missing from the account of the 16th century provided by Lichfield Cathedral is the theological rationale provided by the Elizabethan Injunctions for the removal of shrines and relics:

to the intent that all superstition and hypocrisy crept into divers men's hearts may vanish away, they shall not set forth or extol the dignity of any images, relics, or miracles; but, declaring the abuse of the same, they shall teach that all goodness, health, and grace ought to be both asked and looked for only of God, as of the very Author and Giver of the same, and of none other.

Also absent is the robust critique of relics presented by Erasmus:

You venerate the saints, and you take pleasure in touching their relics. But you disregard their greatest legacy, the example of a blameless life.

In other words, the historical and theological summary given on the Lichfield Cathedral site is, to say the very least, not what one would expect of a Church of England cathedral. It provides no reference to the widely-recognised (not only among Protestants) need for reform in the 16th century and fails to demonstrate any theological understanding of the necessity for reform.

That said, there are statements on the site which hint at what should be the rationale for providing a place in which relics of Saint Chad can be preserved:

We will look back to the source of Chad’s faith and mission and how it shaped our history and purpose ... The shrine project seeks to bring us together to remember St Chad, a saint of an undivided Church, whose personal humility and peaceable nature brought many to the Christian faith.

There are good classical Anglican precedents for such an approach and understanding.  The Laudian Richard Montagu, for example, denied that Protestants maintained "the bones or Reliques of Saints are not to bee kept":

It is naturall for any man to affect the remembrance or memorials of a friend; to admire and make much of rare things, not euery day seene. Bring mee then a piece of the Crosse of our Sauiour, one of the Nailes, or some such memoriall of his Passion: shew mee Moses Rod, Saint Peter's Sword, I will prize them aboue all the Iewels I can haue. Will this content you? I know no Protestant will doe lesse then so.

This, Montagu noted, reflected the practice of "the Primitive Church":

Eusebius ... relateth, that the chaire of Saint Iames, brother to our Lord, and first Bishop of Ierusalem, was kept & preserued by his successors. And what if Eusebius write thus? it is no such great wonder for a chaire to last 300 yeeres; in keeping of it, I know no hurt, or impiety ... For Eusebius doth not say, that they worshipped it, or that any vertue went out of it.

This being so, reverently preserving relics was an entirely acceptable practice, following the example of the early Church, but contrasting with Tridentine practices:

Worship them I dare not. Shew them as you doe, I would not ... in this you abuse them too profanely, making merchandize of the Word of God. In that you profane them to Idolatry, misleading the People to adore them. This did not Antiquity, nor doe wee.

Similarly, the mid-19th century Old High theologian (and later bishop) E.H. Browne, in his commentary on the Articles of Religion, regarded Article 22's condemnation of the "Romish doctrine concerning ... Reliques" to permit the quite different practice of the early Church:

it has been proved, that, in the early ages, the Church never permitted anything like religious worship to be offered to the relics of the saints. The respect paid to them sprang from that natural instinct of humanity, which prompts us to cherish the mortal remains, and all else that is left to us, of those we have loved and honoured whilst in life; and the belief of the sacredness and future resurrection of the bodies of Christians, joined with the wish to protect them from the insults of their heathen persecutors, added intensity to this feeling.

There is, then, a strong, coherent Laudian and Old High case for relics of Saint Chad being reverently housed in Lichfield Cathedral, in recognition of his witness and ministry.  Alongside this we can also point to those Black Letter days in the 1662 Kalendar which refer to the 'Translation' of relics: of Edward, King of the W. Saxons on 20th June, of Saint Martin on 4th July, of King Edward the Confessor on 13th October. The inclusion of such dates in the Kalendar, with the explicit statement that they mark 'Translation', is certainly suggestive of the Laudian and Old High case that there is a rationale for a reverent keeping of relics.

How does this cohere with the Reformation witness? The removal of shrines and relics during the 16th century (with the exception, it should be noted, of the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey - itself testimony to the Laudian understanding) was a necessary response to the confusions, abuses, and errors which surrounded the cult of relics in late medieval Latin Christendom.  As seen in the writings of Erasmus, serious and radical reform was urgently required to restore the Church's Christological centre. This was the point of the Reformation's rejection of the cult of relics.

It is this which then allows for a restoration of the early Christian practice, as proposed by the Laudian and Old High understanding.  Precisely because the Reformation rightly removed the "Adoration ... of Reliques ... [as] a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture", the earlier practice of reverently preserving relics can be restored.

We might draw a comparison with the commemoration of the faithful departed at the Eucharist.  The Old High anti-Tractarian William Palmer noted, in his 1838 study of the liturgy, that the restoration of the commemoration of the departed in the 1662 rite was dependent on 1552/59 excluding such commemoration:

When the doctrine of purgatory had been extirpated, the English church restored the commemoration of saints departed in the liturgy, which had been omitted for many years from the same caution and pious regard to the souls of her children.

The success of the Reformation can be measured by the extent to which the adoration of relics is regarded by average Anglicans across the globe to be an entirely alien practice, unknown to Anglican piety. This, of course, does not stop Anglicans reverently preserving relics which are signs of a past ministry or witness. In the same way, we place memorials in parish churches and cathedrals: we obviously do not consider this to be a form of adoration, but a sign of gratitude and reverence for the memory of one who is part of the Body of Christ.  

And so it should be with Saint Chad in Lichfield Cathedral.  Despite the rather confusing and unsatisfactory aspects of the account given by the Cathedral, there is a convincing, coherent Laudian and Old High - peaceable Protestant - case for ensuring that this cathedral of England's national Church reverently houses the mortal remains of a saint whose ministry and witness helped to shape the Christian story of England.