I have known Trim since 1963. Its Norman castle is the best in Ireland. The gardens at Butterstream (above) are not the best in Ireland; saying that would cause uproar at Barmeath. However, they were good enough for the Prince of Wales to visit in 1995. Trim is a small city in Co. Meath. It is a city technically, because it has a cathedral.
When I lived in Co. Louth I was elected to the Select Vestry at Dunleer. This is the C of I equivalent of being a parish councillor in the C of E but sounds grander. My brother-in-law performs more important duties at Trim cathedral. Over the years I have been privy to his diocesan travails. I expect Trollope got inspiration for Barchester from such a set-up, although it’s not as imposing as most English cathedrals.
One of my b-in-laws stock phrases was, probably still is, “I’m going to tell that bloody bishop”. In point of fact I think he seldom did or only in a watered-down version. However, he had a crisis with the dean that Trollope would have hesitated to invent on the grounds of its extreme improbability. The dean was accused of heresy and, through one of those ridiculous administrative oversights that only occur in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, it was punishable by burning at the stake. Christopher Howse in the Daily Telegraph in May 2002 explains what it was all about.
A dean in the Church of Ireland has resigned his post after being taken to an ecclesiastical court charged with heresy. The case is important but peculiar. The Very Revd Andrew Furlong was Dean of Clonmacnoise, in charge of the cathedral at Trim, Co Meath. Deans are powerful figures in the Anglican Church (of which the Church of Ireland, with its 400,000 members, is a part); bishops cannot overrule them in their sphere of influence.
No trial such as this has been held for more than a century. The Most Revd Robin Eames, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, presided over the court, with two bishops, two civil judges and two laymen. On April 8, it heard legal points, and the trial would have continued last week if Dr Furlong had not resigned. But it was not an employment tribunal; its business was to rule on belief.
When churches intervene in matters of doctrine, a common reaction is that believers should be left to decide their own creed and not be harassed on technical points of theology that no one understands. But Dr Furlong’s doctrinal differences were fundamental: he denied the divinity of Christ and the possibility that God could become incarnate, and he denied that Jesus is the saviour of mankind.
A complaint was made against Dr Furlong after he published his opinions on the internet. The Bishop of Meath took action. In an interview after legal proceedings began, Dr Furlong admitted that he had kept quiet about his unorthodox views in the past because “if I was upfront about my beliefs, I would not get an appointment anywhere”. As it was, he took up his position as dean in 1997.
Dr Furlong thinks he is not alone in his views, and here he is surely right. There are academic theologians in Britain whose ideas are even less positive about God and his actions. “We are not people who believe in the incarnation of God. We don’t believe in the cross,” he says. “Nor do we believe in the Resurrection.” He likens his beliefs to advocacy of the ordination of women or of birth control, which a few decades ago would have been censured. “My day may not have come,” he says.
Dr Furlong thinks Jesus was just a man and “a remarkable member of the ancient community of Israel”. Moreover, he does not think that Jesus’s death could have saved mankind, because “to require a human sacrifice for forgiveness and salvation is suggestive of divine sadism”. He believes in a God who is good but hidden, having made no special revelation through Jesus.
It is difficult to know if Dr Furlong has been hard done by. Anglican theological colleges certainly do not formulate belief in accord with the creeds in the Book of Common Prayer, such as the so-called Athanasian Creed, which is very specific about Jesus, calling him “perfect God and perfect Man”, incarnated “not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God”. The question is how little clergy need believe before they no longer qualify as Christians.
A woman was appointed Bishop of Meath and Kildare in 2013 and Ireland introduced same-sex marriage last year but in 2002 the C of I did draw the line at heresy. Today it might be more accommodating?
http://youtu.be/XfuBREMXxts
Dear Christopher,
Reminiscent of Bishop Clayton in the 18th century (although he conveniently died before he could be tried by his ecclesiastical peers): as you may know, his Dublin residence on St Stephen’s Green, designed for him by Richard Castle (this was in the days when Bishops had a serious income) forms the core of what is now Iveagh House.
Very interesting and I didn’t know.
As a member of the Select Vestry the first purpose built Protestant Church in Ireland I found this post very interesting. St Patrick’s Church in Newry was built by Sir Nicholas Bagenal in 1578. I have visited Trim several times but never the Cathedral. I went last year to once again visit Butterstream Garden. I hadn’t been for about a decade. I drove up and down the road several times to locate the entrance but to no avail. So as a last resort I called at the post office to ask directions. I was surprised by the blank looks I received – a customer then spoke up and said they were no more! I drove back out the road and indeed a large housing development now occupies the site. The lookout tower from which you could observe the full expanse of garden is now an elaborate feature on some lucky persons plot. Celtic Tiger once again!
I was shown round Butterstream by Jim Reynolds. I now do remember my sister telling me that he had given up the garden because it was expensive to maintain and the property developer’s cheque hard to resist.
Re the Bishop of Meath: do any readers know if they are still distinguished from their peers by the prefix Most Reverend?
I gather that they have traditionally been regarded as the most senior bishops in the Church of Ireland, ranking after the two archbishops.
Perhaps this style is now considered to be archaic; or is it?
You are correct. The Bishop of Meath is the senior bishop in the Church of Ireland and is addressed as The Most Rev. Other C of I bishops are The Rt. Rev.
Jim’s garden still exists (the rear part) but is no longer open to the public: as you say, he gave up owing to time and cost constraints (also, yes, the allure of a developer’s cheque) and his involvement with other projects.
Don’t forget the diocese of Meath is united with that of Kildare so the appropriate title would be’ The Most Rev xx of Meath and Kildare