London's 100 Best Churches

The petition calling for BBC R2 Sunday Half-Hour to be saved has reached over 500.

This is significant since most listeners do not yet know about the online petition and many loyal listeners do not have a computer.

The figure is rising as I write and the comments under the signatures indicate shock and distress at the BBC’s decision to move the programme to 6am and give it a new name.

The longer hour programme starting before dawn this Sunday 20 January is not  compensation.

The petition can be read and signed HERE.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-15 January) will be marked by now traditional services in central London.

This Friday 18 January St Paul’s Cathedral choir sings evensong at Westminster Cathedral (5pm). On Thursday 24 January Westminster’s choir will sing vespers at St Paul’s (5pm).

At 6.30pm on Monday 21 January the annual choral evensong for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity at St Dunstan-in-the-West will have the Revd John Slater as preacher.

Fr Slater is Counsellor for Foreign Relations to His Beatitude Gregorios III, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East and of Alexandria and of Jerusalem.

Southwark Cathedral always marks the week with a walk to several churches. This year the guided walk is on Saturday 19 January beginning at 10am outside St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. This follows the 9.30am Mass.

The new Bishop of Fulham, Jonathan Baker, is to be also Guild Vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West.

The church in Fleet Street is shared with the Roumanian Orthodox Church.

Bishop Baker is expected to be installed in the London Diocese and in the parish next month.

St Augustine’s Church in Kilburn has run into trouble with a proposal to have mobile phone masts in the tower.

“We are not against the church,” says the residents’ association spokesperson. “It is one of the most beautiful in London, in the same category as St Martin-In-The-Fields.”

The church, known as the ‘cathedral of north London’, is one of JL Pearson’s famous buildings with a lovely interior.

The row involves both local residents worried about more phone masts in the area affecting health and Westminster City Council which objects to the replacement of  original wooden louvres with a new plastic version required by the phone company.

It also appears that annual rental would not be substantial.

The Evening Standard and the Ham & High are running the story.

London’s 100 Best Churches is available for a short period at the special price £7.50.

Copies at this ‘half price’ offer can be obtained direct from Canterbury Press or from Church House Bookshop in Great Smith Street near Westminster Abbey.

Fr Paul Bagott, vicar of The Most Holy Redeemer Clerkenwell and St Mark’s has been appointed Priest-in-Charge of St Cuthbert’s Philbeach Gardens.

This is good news as the church has had a falling congregation.

Earl’s Court has changed and its last much-loved incumbent John Vine was ill towards the end of his long ministry.

Fr Paul goes from one of London’s 100 best churches to another.

It has Liberty-style arts and crafts furnishings and the largest reredos north of Spain.

The task of a new parish priest will  be huge as the parish is about to experience major transformation with Earl’s Court exhibition centre about demolished for housing.

Fr Paul will be licensed on St Cuthbert’s Day Wednesday 20 March.  The patronal festival is always a big occasion with relics of the saint on show.

BBC Radio 2’s Sunday Half-Hour has its final broadcast tonight Sunday 13 January at 8.30pm.

It is being closed down with just a week’s notice after 72 years.

The substitute is to be at 6am. The BBC claims that the new programme will be an hour long.

However, this statement masks the the fact that R2 is reducing its religious output by 30 mins.

BUT all is not lost. Recently the BBC dropped Wednesday’s choral evensong but public demand had it reinstated later in the year.

If you care please sign the petition.

The Save Sunday Half-Hour petition was launched on Thursday and so far signatures of support are running at  50 a day.

So many people point out that there are listeners who do not have access to a computer and are not awake at 6am.

BBC Radio 2 is moving Sunday Half-Hour from 8.30pm to 6am and rebranding it! Why change a brand known all over the English speaking world?

Please tell friends about the online petition.

There has been so much concern about the BBC’s arbitrary decision to switch Sunday Half-Hour from 8.30pm to a 6am slot that I have launched  a petition.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN

By signing you can help indicate that many people are unhappy at the decision.

Bob Shennan, BBC Radio 2 Controller, talks about expanding ‘the airtime to an hour’ but fails to mention that you will have to wake up by 6am to hear it.

Anyway, an hour is too long for the programme. The BBC executives don’t understand the nature of the programme or its role in conveying the liturgical year through much loved music.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-sunday-half-hour/

A shocking announcement a few minutes ago by the BBC.

BBC Radio 2’s Sunday Half Hour, which has been broadcast weekly for over seventy years, is to be axed.

The ‘replacement’ will go out at 6am under a new name.

This is bad news for all the London churches which feature and those who listen every Sunday evening as part of their weekend routine.

Recently BBC Radio 3 was forced by public opinion to restore the Wednesday choral evensong.

I shall be complaining to the BBC. It is no use in remaining silent about the continued sidelining of religion.