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Ship of Fools: Ripon Cathedral, North Yorkshire, England

The Mystery WorshipperThe Mystery Worshipper Shipmate
edited May 2019 in The Mystery Worshipper

imageShip of Fools: Ripon Cathedral, North Yorkshire, England

Ash Wednesday at this monumental cathedral brings to mind the triumph of God’s glory

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here


Comments

  • Box PewBox Pew Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    Thanks for your report Portola. It prompted me to attend a service at Ripon Cathedral when in North Yorks recently. Which I guess is one the points of having a site like this.
  • RovermaN95RovermaN95 Shipmate Posts: 2
    Thank you Portola. I'd like to ask a question. Did you have a look around the Cathedral? If so did you visit St. Wilfrid's crypt? I was in Ripon in April. St. Wilfrid's is my church in Standish after he visited on pilgrimage. Very inspiring.
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    I love Ripon Cathedral.If I am passing with tourists I will take them there if I sense that they are interested in churches.It is much easier to visit than York Minster and I think that entrance is still free.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    Their website doesn't seem to mention an entrance fee, TBTG, so hopefully you're right.

    I dunno. There's something about the 'smaller' cathedrals, IYSWIM - they sometimes seem to be more like big local churches/mother churches/diocesan resource centres, or whatever, rather than major tourist attractions struggling to still be places of worship.

    Does that make sense?
    :worried:
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    edited May 2019
    That's certainly my experience too (my local cathedral is the latter type and sadly doesn't quite achieve what it could).

    Roverman, small world - I know your curate very well.
  • PortolaPortola Shipmate
    Hello to RovermaN95! Today I saw your question: Yes, I have visited the ancient crypt, which conveys the feeling of going back several centuries as one descends the steps.
    My wife and I have visited Ripon Cathedral many times and have explored every corner of it. This cathedral is like a home away from home for us. We have attended several Evensongs and Eucharists. Since Ripon Cathedral is also a parish church, there is a sense of community here which becomes even more apparent at the after-service coffee on Sundays, where it is very easy to become engaged in genuine conversations. The clergy make an extra effort to greet every person in a friendly way.
    To Bishops Finger: there is still no admission charge, just a suggested donation at the enterance. Ripon Cathedral is very much a place of worship and does not feel like a tourist attraction.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Does Ripon still have a bishop - is it still a cathedral?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    Sort of. It's part of the huge Anglican Diocese of Leeds, which has 3 cathedrals (Ripon, Bradford, and Wakefield).

    This linky might explain more:
    https://leeds.anglican.org/cathedrals

    I gather that what seemed like a good idea at the time has brought into being an unwieldy monster...
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Bishops Finger wrote: »
    Sort of. It's part of the huge Anglican Diocese of Leeds, which has 3 cathedrals (Ripon, Bradford, and Wakefield).

    This linky might explain more:
    https://leeds.anglican.org/cathedrals

    I gather that what seemed like a good idea at the time has brought into being an unwieldy monster...

    A diocese with five bishops. Is that unique?
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    To me the new Diocese of Leeds looks like a complete mess. I think they missed an opportunity to take a more sensible course in the form of merging Bradford into Wakefield, with the loss of some of its rural outposts to Ripon. Of course, perhaps there was a bit of residual 'Faith in the City' thinking going around - i.e. rural areas don't matter because the unreached population is in the cities.

    I lived in Ripon for four years about 30 years ago, and liked the place immensely. I could never quite settle at the Cathedral for Sundays, but I often warmed a stall at Evensong, and more often than not at Mattins on a Sunday. Otherwise I would go to Holy Trinity, which was a bit Low for me, but more comfortable for HC.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    'A complete mess' (or sweary-words to that effect) is how it has been described to me by one who works at Church House (aka Moonbase).

    Given that Bishops don't often preach/celebrate the Eucharist etc. at their own cathedral, being busy Bishopping around elsewhere, I guess the Cathedrals of Leeds (none of which are actually in Leeds*) just carry on in the usual Cathedraly way.

    (*There is, of course, a rather fine Leeds Cathedral, of the Roman Perswasion.)
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I suppose it's partly the bishop's own cathedral as the cathedra is there, but as a church, is it not the Dean's own?
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    "Balls-up" would have been my first choice of epithet. Mind you, unlike Sheffield, the reasoning behind the Bradford diocese was always a bit suspect in the first place given that they had created Wakefield first. It always looked like a case of Ripon is slightly too big, as is Wakefield, so let's squeeze in another diocese in Bradford without looking at the overall picture within Yorkshire. Earlier proposals to create a see of Whitby to cover Cleveland, and Richmond probably had more going for them than the Bradford idea. I have never taken a look at what +HHH had to say about Bradford's foundation, though I am not altogether sure he was in the Lords at the time, but given how scathing he was about some other proposals in the 1920s, it would have been unusual for him to have approved of it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    +HHH - the former Vice-President? I had not realised that he was ordained, let alone consecrated.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    I think PDR might mean Bishop Herbert Hensley Henson:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hensley_Henson

    No Veeps here, AFAIK!
    :wink:
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    One day we may be lucky here and have one. Thanks for the reference.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    I suppose it's partly the bishop's own cathedral as the cathedra is there, but as a church, is it not the Dean's own?

    BTW, yes, the Dean (and Chapter) run the cathedral. I think most Bishops have a chapel in their palace to which they can hie themselves for private prayer and spiritual refreshment! Hopefully, their chaplains are not all made in the likeness of the egregious Reverend Obadiah Slope...

  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    Sorry, yes - Herbert Hensley Henson. A man of uncompromising views if ever there was one. Brilliant if flawed. Certainly a bit of a prophet as to the future direction of the Church of England when its comes to his comments on the Enabling Act. He forecast that the CofE would become alienated from the great mass of the English people, and would become a liberal catholic sect.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    Well, he wasn't quite right there. More of an evangelical sect, if a sect at all (which I don't accept - the C of E, for all its faults, is still a 'broad church'. YMMV).

    Alienated from the mass of the people, though, yes.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    My home area seems to have gone liberal catholic, which leaves me wondering if (1) it is a regional thing, and (2) whether my home area may be having one of its salmon moments. The alienation thing is right one, though. Most of the older members of my family were mainly alienated from the CofE by the disappearance of Matins, then the final nail in the coffin was the replacement of the BCP by something they were not used to. Once that generation left the ensuing ones were not brought up only vaguely connected to the church.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    Opinions may vary as to the effect of the disappearance of Matins and the BCP, though it's encouraging to hear other Shipmates sometimes refer to growing attendances at such services - possibly because of their rarity, and the fact that those who like that sort of thing find that the sort of thing they like.

    They doubtless obtain spiritual strength and refreshment, of course, which cannot but be a Good Thing, and the same may well be truly said of liberal catholic places...

  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    I suspect Parish Communion would have been less of a wrench for folks like my family if its introduction had been preceded by a sustained attempt to reassure the less enthusiastic communicants that non-communicating attendance was OK. I don't have a problem sitting it out if I don't want to receive, but I was brought up with the notion that you only attended communion in order to receive. I did not get better instructions on that until theological college where a daily mass meant I was sitting it out on an epic scale once I knew it was OK to attend and not to receive.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    You may well be right, and I take your point.

    Back to Ripon Cathedral - and others like it - which are to be commended for good music, liturgy, and preaching, along with an unobtrusive welcome to all and sundry, and no pressure to do anything they don't want to do.

    IYSWIM.

  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    Yes, Ripon is a favourite of mine among the northern cathedrals. Just enough 'parish church' to be friendly, but enough of a cathedral to do full-on cathedral liturgy.
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