The foot-washing ceremony during the Holy Thursday service will look different in some churches next week. A theologian and liturgist hopes that this change will lead to a recovery of the true meaning of the ritual

A  curious link between the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Jean Vanier and Pope Francis is that each has attracted media attention – somewhat bewildered if not adverse – by their involvement in the washing of feet.

When Williams introduced the practice to Canterbury in 2003, many regarded it as rather strange behaviour. The Daily Telegraph noted that “cathedral archivists said they could find no record of previous archbishops washing feet at Canterbury Cathedral”. The reader was left with the impression that it was one more silly novelty, possibly imported from Williams’ previous position in Wales, into a settled (and, presumably, almost perfect) routine.

Earlier, in 1998, Jean Vanier had organised a foot-washing liturgy at a meeting of church leaders at the World Council of Churches. The individual reactions of participants are not recorded, but later Vanier, recalling the moment when he saw an Orthodox bishop kneel down and wash the feet of a female American Baptist minister, observed: “Gestures sometimes speak louder and more lastingly than words.”