Hungary loans relic of St Thomas of Canterbury

BRITONS will soon be able to revere a relic of St Thomas of Canterbury that has been kept in Hungary for the past 800 years, writes James Roberts.

At a press conference last week in London announcing a 23-29 May programme of events associated with the visit, a panel that included the Hungarian ambassador, Peter Szabadhegy, Fr Nicholas Schofield, archivist of Westminster archdiocese, Revd Canon Jeremy Worthen, Secretary for Ecumenical Relations and Theology with the Church of England, and Catholic peer Lord Alton of Liverpool – who is a trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst – emphasised why St Thomas is relevant to the struggles of today.

British society was falling victim to a “collective amnesia”, Lord Alton said, and St Thomas is an important reminder of freedoms that had to be fought for. He defended, and died for, the independence of the Church from the state, resisting what we came in the twentieth century to call totalitarianism – a scourge that still haunts us today.

In its journey from Esztergom, in northern Hungary, to London and Canterbury, the relic, a piece of the saint’s arm bone, arrives in its reliquary (pictured above) at Westminster Cathedral on Monday 23 May. A solemn Mass will be held there on that day, in the company of the Hungarian President, János Áder.

On Saturday 28 May, after weekday services at Westminster Abbey, Mercers’ Chapel, and visits to St Margaret’s Church (Westminster Abbey), St Lawrence Jewry Church and the Houses of Parliament, the relics will transfer via Rochester to Canterbury. There will be a service in Canterbury Cathedral followed by a Catholic Mass in the crypt of the cathedral on Sunday 29 May.