AN UNCERTAIN CHRISTIAN VISITS THE JOURNALIST’S CHURCH OF FLEET STREET
Words by Abigail Mableson
“I hope you go to church on a Sunday morning,” was something my grandma would say to me, half-joking, but never entirely unserious.
At university, I lived directly opposite the local parish church. I also was a neighbour to the busiest student pub. Most Sunday mornings, I stayed in bed, and felt no guilt about it.
A year later, on a grey morning, I find myself standing outside St. Bride’s Church on Fleet Street, wondering exactly what I am doing here.
The white spire, rumoured to have inspired the first tiered wedding cake, rises above the relics of Britain’s newspaper past. Despite this architectural statement, the church is harder to find than you might expect. Its exterior is wrapped in scaffolding and tucked behind a posh coffee shop and a pub, typical of a London city street.
My relationship with Christianity is weak. I was baptised as a baby but write “atheist” on job applications, and occasionally wear a cheap cross necklace to be fashionable. Another year has gone by, and I quit nothing for Lent. Still, something about the threshold of a church door feels harder to cross than it should.
When I make it inside, it is warm and peaceful. Reverend Canon Dr Alison Joyce ushers me towards a newly refurbished museum display in the crypt. “The Queen opened this,” she says, proudly. Tabloid-style headlines line the walls, a reminder of the street’s past life.
St. Bride’s is known as the Journalists’ Church. For centuries, reporters have gathered here, sometimes to celebrate, more often to mourn. In 2010, Marie Colvin spoke here at an annual commemoration for journalists at risk. Two years later, she was killed while reporting on the Syrian War.
The nave is beautiful and quiet. Gold catches the light above the rows of wooden pews. Builders sit scattered amongst them, eating lunch beneath the most spiritual roof repair of their careers.
Every pew bears the name of a newspaper or journalist. A memorial honours John Schofield, who died young reporting in Croatia. A wooden engraving is dedicated to correspondents killed in the Iraq War. My curiosity lingers on the names, wanting to know about their stories, and their pasts.
In a secluded corner, almost easy to miss, stands the Journalists’ Altar, commemorating journalists who have died while reporting. Candles beside photographs and plaques. The Journalists’ Prayer, as part of the memorial, asks not for safety, but the continued need to confront evils and injustice, and keep integrity, all in the word of Almighty God.
In front of the altar, a cluster of plaques commemorate journalists killed in Gaza. Fifteen of them, filled with names, placed precariously on a makeshift pew, as though the church ran out of room. There are too many names to take in at once, but the volume holds weight.
I stand there longer than I intend to. The conflict is depicted in a way that is now, visually, even harder to process. Each name represents a story cut short far too soon. And that is only the journalists.
It is difficult to know what to do with this, but it is equally hard to have faith looking at this. I am at the beginning of a career that asks for risk-taking, but the costs of this are laid bare. Then again, the Journalists’ Prayer is written above, and exposing the truth feels of greater importance than the risk involved.
Stories of journalism’s so-called “Street of Shame”, and the reporters who spent their working lives there, run deep in the Church. In 1702, The Daily Courant, the first British daily newspaper, was founded in the parish.
From body snatchers and cholera to the Great Fire of London, St. Bride’s has witnessed a mix of catastrophe and intrigue that forms the beginning of every good news story. But still, it maintains a feeling of peacefulness. I know, when looking at the altar, there is no sensationalism. The reality is there in front of me.
There is talk that young people are returning to religion, seeking God in a time where the world is changing so fast it verges on unfathomable. Looking around, I do not see many faces that look like mine. It is not clear whether this makes me an outsider, or just early.
Robin Turner, a verger, tells me younger Christians prefer cathedrals as they are more anonymous. A smaller church is exposing, with a sense that your presence, or absence, might be questioned.
As I leave, he adds, “this is the Journalists’ Church, but it is still a practicing one.”
Outside, as I return to Fleet Street, it feels louder than before. I find myself missing the sanctuary and peace it offered, even though for parts of my visit, I forgot about God entirely.
Walking away, I think about the candles at the altar, and the 15 pages of names that will soon become 16, or even more. I am not too sure what I believe. But I know that my presence there was felt, wherever in the world that may be. I think my grandma would approve.