St Endellion

Welcome to St Endellion!
 

“St. Endellion! St. Endellion! The name is like a ring of bells. I travelled late one summer evening to Cornwall in a motor car. The road was growing familiar, Delabole, with its slate quarry past, then Pendoggett.  Gateways in the high fern-stuffed hedges showed sudden glimpses of the sea.  Port Isaac Bay with its sweep of shadowy cliffs stretched all along to Tintagel.  The wrinkled Atlantic Ocean had the evening light upon it.  The stone and granite manor house of Tresungers with its tower and battlements was tucked away out of the wind on the slope of a valley and there, on the top of the hill was the old church of Saint Endellion.”
 
So wrote Sir John Betjeman (see here for the full text of his article). about his approach to this magical church.  St Endellion is one of England’s holy places, an ancient collegiate church with four prebends, a mile from the sea and surrounded by fields.  Betjeman observed that the church goes on praying even when there is no one in it, and it has a sense of spiritual community which affects so many who come here.  For many of the members of the two annual St Endellion Music Festivals, who provide music at an international level, St Endellion is their spiritual home.  
 
Today St Endellion and St Minver are home to the two largest among our six churches.  In St Endellion the Sung Eucharist on Sundays is in the High Church tradition, with incense.  We love to welcome people into this sense of holy community, in a place where heaven and earth seem very close.
 
A very exciting project has begun at St Endellion, to make a small centre for the Arts & Spirituality with residential capability. A tripartite agreement has been forged between our church, the Diocese and the Music Festivals which has led to the formation of a new Company, called `Endelienta’, which has its own website:  http://www.endelienta.org.uk/calendar.html

Endelienta has agreed to share buildings and has a mission to explore life and creativity through the Arts and Spirituality.  Already the Rectory has been saved, the old ruined dairy purchased and this year a ruined barn has been fully restored to accommodate up to 19 young people. Please bring a group!  While the barn is described as `an upmarket youth hostel’ the Glebe Farm is also available for booking, next door.

For us in church, this is like a `Fresh Expression of Church’ and is our primary mission, as we seek to serve people in North Cornwall and beyond, speaking of God’s love, his Incarnation, his beauty and our own response to his transcendence and immanence.

 

 

A vision for St Endellion

 

At the APCM our Rector, Prebendary John May, told those present that St Endellion is a rare and precious plant which people from all over the world come to see and so it must be treated with great care, but he also shared his vision for the future. He proposed that we all find a way of revisioning St Endellion as a holy place with a strong sense of mission. A holy place for God and a life lived in prayerful and lively harmony. His hope was that we can all think again and revision as we go forward.

He performed an exercise on church attendance figures by taking a series of random Sundays and comparing like for like over the last five years. Perhaps surprisingly, despite some minor rises and falls, the numbers were more or less stable. Whilst it may even be seen as remarkable that we get the numbers that we do, if we are staying the same we are obviously not growing which leads naturally to his hope for a revisioning, springing from us all.

 

 

 

Parish Retreat 14th to 17th May

The annual Parish retreat will be held at Treworra Barton and the general theme this year will be “Saints”. If you would like to come and stay for some or all of the retreat, accommodation is available so please speak to Judith . Many people come just for a day as the drive to Davidstow is only a short one. The full programme has now been finalised and if you would like more information or further details please speak to Prebendary Judith (880181). The retreat is a window for reflection on our faith but it is also a time for friendship and fun.