VICAR'S LETTER

17 Sundon Road     
Streatley      

September, 2005      

Dear All 

The patron saint of our church is St. Margaret of Antioch. It is a patronage that prompts three questions:

• Who was she? 

• Why choose her? 

• What conceivable relevance does she have to the situation of the church to-day?

The answer to who she was, or more precisely, who she wasn't, is provided by the Dictionary of Saints. Her entry goes as follows:

Margaret: Virgin martyr. Feast Day: July 20. Margaret (called Marina in the East) was one of the most popular saints in the later Middle Ages in the West, but there is no positive evidence that she ever existed. Her story is simply a fictitious romance. It relates that in the reign of Diocletian a pagan priest at Antioch in Pisidia had a Christian daughter, Margaret. She rejected the advances of the prefect, Olybrius, who "therefore denounced her as a Christian." The ordeals she then suffered are of the most fabulous description ("including being swallowed by Satan in the form of a dragon"); finally she was beheaded. This farrago professes to have been written by an eyewitness, Margaret's attendant, Theotinus. Margaret's emblem is a dragon.

The dictionary account merely serves to deepen the mystery as to why anyone should choose Margaret to be their patron saint, let alone why she should be one of the most popular choices of the late Middle Ages. This however, is chiefly because the Dictionary, for reasons of space or modesty, misses out the juiciest bit of the tale. The story does indeed tell of Margaret being swallowed by the Devil in the form of a dragon, but it then goes on to tell how the Devil, disliking the taste, promptly evacuated her. This qualified her in the eyes of the medieval church (remember it was run by celibate clerics) to be the patron saint of childbirth. The late Middle Ages were the time of the Black Death. One third of the entire population of England died. In those circumstances it was scarcely surprising that the patron saint of childbirth became a popular choice as the patron saint of many churches which, like ours, were rebuilt in the years following the plague.

But if we can now understand why Margaret was chosen when our church was new, what conceivable relevance does she have now? In fact, our forebears would appear to have chosen more wisely than they knew. St. Margaret's, Streatley, seems to be a church that makes something of a speciality of being re-born. It was re-born after the Black Death when this present church was built and given the name St. Margaret. (Prior to that it seems to have been St. Mary's) It was re-born again in 1938. It had fallen into total ruin. The roof was hanging down the walls. Only a tarpaulin kept out the rain. An elderberry bush grew where the altar now stands. Another grew out of the tower. It looked a wreck. Just in time it was saved, largely to serve the new and growing population of Warden Hill, since when it has sprung back into vigorous life.

Now it faces another crisis. Like every other church it has to find a way to keep alive the light of faith in a world that is steadily drifting away from the practice of religion and from belief in God. At such a time it is good to be able to look back and see the tradition in which you stand, the tradition of a church that for close on a thousand years has steadfastly and stubbornly refused to die. It is also good to know that you have on your side a celestial specialist in re-birth.

All best wishes

Roger

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