A clergyman in the Church of England in the Diocese of London. Musings in Church and State and late Roman History (and, in fact, any history).
While the paper doesn’t call for Ukraine to surrender its territory for peace, the paper overall is one I couldn’t actually endorse. There are serious flaws in it, which I’d like briefly to flag up, and some aspects which are worrying for their absence. 🧵
What the Bishop of Leicester is proposing the the complete dismantling and destruction of the parish system, the loss of independence for all the little platoons across Leicestershire and the creation of “Minsters”. This is the death of localism. It is why #SaveTheParish is vital
Indeed, my reading of this document would ban priests from going to the pub if there are children there. I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere but if they are going to implement such a drastic imposition on clergy & parishes, this needs proper debate & scrutiny.
I remember the Berlin Wall falling so well. We had lived in Moscow until 1988 and to see the whole Eastern Bloc collapse was astonishing and exhilarating - the first real geopolitical event I even began to understand.
And here we are. The thing that kicked it all off: an indulgence, being sold to fund the debts incurred by Albert as he sought to add the Archbishopric of Magdeburg to his already not unimpressive spiritual possession of Mainz. (Never seen an indulgence before. Impressive.) 
It was lucky I was with an RC priest, who had booked ahead to concelebrate, so they were able to slot my in as supernumerary (and were very friendly in the process), but it was a proper reminder of how websites & social media aren’t an optional extra but missionally vital.
So it’s just frustrating to see commentators scratch their heads and say “this will undermine their cause and alienate the electorate”. They don’t care about the electorate, they explicitly want to bypass the electorate and representative democracy. Again: they don’t hide this.
In the Middle Ages they clearly went “this is a bit boring but we can’t really knock it down, let’s just build something Gothic and tack it on the side.” So they did. And it’s rather lovely. 
And the worst thing? The opportunity to buy a life-time’s supply of Karl Marx busts. 😡 
Although he was writing about Chartres, and although Chartres is much more of-a-piece than Cologne, Kenneth Clark’s words on the Gothic are well-worth reading as we continue the #HRE2020 progress. 
Finally, thinks I, a fellow traveller! 
They have banned photographs! Which, well, frankly is the kind of tyrannical, pointless, archaïc (in a bad way) measure that should be clearly flagged in advance so that innocent visitors are not trapped on a pointless, record-less visit!