Holy Quests and Sacred Union

© Seán Manchester, 2003

“But now in Christ Jesus you

who were formerly far off

have been brought near by

the blood of Christ.”

~ Ephesians 2: 13

W

On Good Friday 1973, along with eleven others, I founded Ordo Sancti Graal on the summit of Parliament Hill, at London’s Hampstead Heath. After three months of spontaneous organisation, we developed into a dispersed Order of disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. By this point I was in minor orders with Ecclesia Vetusta Catholica, an autocephalous branch of the Body of Christ that seceded from the Roman Catholic Church on 15 October 1724 with the consecration of Cornelius Steehoven as the Archbishop of Utrecht. The succession reached these shores on 8 April 1908 with the consecration of Arnold Harris Mathew as the Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for Great Britain and Ireland.

The founding of the Order at Easter 1973 led to processions of the Cross.

Seventeen years later, I would take holy orders within Ecclesia Vetusta Catholica. In the interim ― notwithstanding pilgrimages, processions, preaching, healing and exorcisms ― I embarked on a number of quests. The Sacred Cup of the Last Supper was the first of these. A local newspaper assisted in this endeavour by quoting me: “In the autumn of ’77 I intend to embark upon a search for the Grail itself ― commencing from Glastonbury. … In brief the Holy Grail ― the vessel used in the Last Supper ― is believed to have been brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea some time after the Crucifixion.” [“Grail Searcher,” Hornsey Journal, 27 May 1977.] The newspaper invited readers to contact me if they wished to assist. The outcome of the quest would not be recorded by the media; though I did agree to contribute to a Channel Four British television programme about the Holy Grail in February 1997, and a documentary film for America’s NBC Channel in early 1998 where I was filmed at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. These transmissions included the Nanteos Cup, the remnant of a wooden bowl thought by some to be the Holy Grail. The Reverend Peter Scothern, who has access to the Nanteos Cup for the purpose of immersing prayer cloths in holy water and chrism in the gnarled bowl to facilitate healing, was to become my acquaintance. The location of the Nanteos Cup is undisclosed; though Reverend Scothern and I are privileged to share that much sought piece of intelligence.

The Nanteos Cup.

Another item that became newsworthy was the search for an artefact known as the Glastonbury Cross. This occurred some five years after the 1977 Grail quest had begun. “The whereabouts of the lead cross, about eight inches long, are known only to [an] amateur archaelogist [Derek Mahoney] … who first found it in the grounds of Forty Hall. … The British Museum said it was either the original Glastonbury Cross which lay on King Arthur’s tomb or a 17th century copy. He refused to hand it over to Enfield Council who own Forty Hall, or the British museum and hid it. He also refused to comply with a court order to hand over the cross and is now serving a two year sentence for contempt of court.” I was quoted in the same article, saying: “We are most anxious to recover it as there is a terrible risk that it could be lost for a few more centuries. There is little archaeological evidence from that period.” [“Magic Cross Search,” Enfield Gazette, 3 September 1982.]

The author at the site of King Arthur’s tomb in Glastonbury Abbey.

The inscribed lead cross was allegedly recovered by Mahoney from the bed of the lake near Maiden’s Brook in the grounds of Forty Hall. A student on duty at the British Museum was allowed to photograph the artefact, but did not keep it for further examination. The mysterious cross was not seen again. Derek Mahoney served only half his original jail sentence of two years, became unwell, and later took his own life.

Ecclesia Vetusta Catholica was to provide a means to be in valid orders without compromising my position on the Church of Rome from which Old Catholics had been obliged to break with in 1724. The growing movement across Europe witnessed a sizeable number of hitherto Roman dioceses becoming Old Catholic for reasons not entirely dissimilar to my own. Jurisdictions beyond the Continent were to become predominantly autocephalous. I was, therefore, able to remain within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church whilst still retaining that degree of independence I felt necessary. The twentieth century witnessed both Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism moving further away from sound doctrine. The contaminating influences at work are discussed in my work about Christianity. I conclude: “Whether institutionalised Churches are being eroded from within by Masonic secret societies or have been so steeped in apostasy for so long as to make no real difference, the volume and pitch of distressed humanity’s evocative cry set into motion the awakening of the Church of the New Covenant.” [The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, page 72.]

My introduction to an acceptable alternative to the Roman Catholic Church happened in the 1960s. I was rehearsing with a group of musicians in Stamford Hill when I felt like having a breath of fresh air, and took a walk. On that particular night, having walked for about ten minutes, I found myself in Rookwood Road where stood the Cathedral Church of the Good Shepherd, which belonged at that time to the Old Catholics. The wooden doors to the Cathedral Church, in common with most churches at that time, remained unlocked. Inside I discovered an atmosphere both sombre and spiritual. When I tentatively approached the dimly illumined high altar ― with its stunning depiction of the Last Supper ― nothing disturbed my contemplative mood. The fragrance of incense still lingered from any earlier ceremony. Other church buildings had not quite managed to provide anything close to this experience. It was a sense of being outside time. Fifteen or so minutes passed. Perhaps much longer. Time seemed suspended. Afterwards I retreated through the dark streets, and back to the rehearsal hall. Not being at all familiar with the district, when I tried to find the church on later occasions it completely eluded me. However, the communion with the divine felt in the Cathedral Church would be followed up in the next decade when I pursued the minor orders of ostiariate, lectorate, exorcistate, and acolytate. Two decades later, I entered the diaconate, followed by the priesthood, and the episcopate.

* * *

In October 1986, I met a girl over whom the powers of Light and darkness fought ― yet whose soul was still intact and heart was largely innocent. Her story of salvation is told in From Satan To Christ, the first book I would dedicate to her.

Sarah on the second anniversary of knowing the

author, plus the publication of her story in 1988.

In the end, Light prevailed over darkness ― and the sacraments joined Sarah and I in sacred union. Her quality of childhood innocence, which had allowed her so easily to drift into the enchantments of the occult, would also prove to be her salvation. What she thought was a dream had revealed itself to be a nightmare, and I am honoured to have been the one to help her awaken from it. A cold and ominous shadow had briefly passed over her life, but now she stood in the warmth of the Light again. The pale creature with dark circles beneath her eyes, encountered by me on a chill October day in 1986, would soon transform into a beautiful young lady, abundant with health and energy. An innocent who went astray, and was now found, but also someone with whom I felt an immense affinity, recognised to be a soul mate, and, moreover, was in love with from the first moment. It was the same for her. Such moments seldom happen in life, and when they do they need to be held and treasured.

On Passion Sunday, April 1987, whilst staying at her parents’ Wiltshire home, I asked Sarah to marry me. She accepted and the following week, on her birthday, I presented her with a solitaire engagement ring. Four months later we were married in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, at 11.15am. Sarah arrived in a vintage 1930s Roche-Talbot.

The day of the wedding ~ 8 August 1987 ~ soon after the ceremony.

She made a beautiful bride in her medieval gown of red and silver. I was attired in the red and white of Ordo Sancti Graal. These colours, of course, are associated with Christ and all who follow Him. On the last evening together as single people we had walked in the moonlight at twilight in a wooded area close to her parents’ house. Bats suddenly filled the darkening sky, some swooping to touch us as we stopped to look at them. It was somehow fitting, symbolic of a last brush with a world we had both encountered from different perspectives.

The bride arrived in a vintage car, wearing a dress she had designed herself, beneath a silver veil, holding a bouquet of red flowers with a circlet of more red flowers in her hair. I gasped at how beautiful she looked. Our vows were exchanged enthusiastically, and those present broke into spontaneous applause at the moment we were declared man and wife. The drive back to the neighbouring town for the reception, drinking champagne all the way, in the Roche-Talbot with its roof down, left us feeling ecstatic. When we arrived at the wedding banquet, held outdoors in the grounds of Sarah’s parents’ house, we cut the cake with a sword, which was followed by my eight minutes’ speech to the guests.

Cutting a tier of the cake at the outdoor wedding breakfast.

A synopsis of that speech follows:

“I never dared to hope that Sarah and I would meet across the timeless mist … it is a dream I have kept locked deep within my soul. Now the dream has come alive. It sometimes happens that a man and a woman meet and instantly recognise the other half of themselves behind the eyes of each other. Such a meeting occurred between Sarah and I. From the first moment we met and gazed upon each other, our spirits rushed together in joyful recognition, ignoring all convention and custom, all social rules of behaviour, driven by an inner knowing ― too overwhelming to be denied. … It is more than coincidence that, out of the whole world, Sarah and I should be drawn together at the appointed time. … And now, through each other, we can find wholeness. For I did not know how empty was my life until it was filled with Sarah.”

Banquet at Melksham with the author’s mother (centre) at the bridal table.

My new bride’s eyes brimmed with tears. I sat down. This was the happiest day of our lives without a doubt. The banquet continued all day with much merriment and music. My London secretary, Diana Brewester, had stood in for my “best man,” Kevin Chesham, at the wedding. He lost his way in Trowbridge, causing the delay, and waited patiently outside until it was all over, not wanting to interrupt or intrude upon the ceremony. Such thoughtfulness makes him the person I value as a friend.

That night Sarah and I repaired to an Old English manor house to begin our honeymoon where a heated swimming pool, and just about everything anyone could want was waiting for us. But all we wanted to do was climb into our four-poster bed and relax with a couple of mugs of drinking chocolate after taking a long, relaxing bath. Sarah switched on the television at the foot of the bed, as room service brought us our drinks. It was after midnight, and the film that came on was Brides of Dracula.

We laughed, and I explained that this was the first of that genre of Hammer Horror Film I had watched as an adolescent at the Essoldo cinema in London. Those days now seemed a million light years away. The England I had once known was almost gone. Little did I realise that by the end of the century it would be unrecognisable in terms of the Christian values that had held it in good stead for so many centuries. But right then in August 1987 I only had eyes and thoughts for my lovely new bride.

Two weeks after our marriage, on August 22nd, Sarah placed everything connected with her occult past on a fire in a field near our cottage in Hertfordshire. Acrid fumes billowed from the pyre until everything was consumed and reduced to ashes. She came home and took a purification bath as a symbolic relinquishment of the Left-hand Path. Only then could we make preparations to have our union blessed. Father Charles Owen carried out this ceremony in the Lady Chapel at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Highgate. Sarah occasionally made cakes for Fr Charles, which he shared with his fellow priests. He was to be a good friend over the years, but even he would become depressed by the deterioration of life in his parish. His beautiful church frequently suffered vandalism and theft. There was also a sharp increase in drug related crime.

Fr Charles with Sarah’s gift of a cake.

Three years after we had become man and wife, Sarah was called to enter the permanent diaconate in order to help our ministry in the early days of my priesthood, exemplified when in 1993 my father asked to be baptised at our private oratory in Hertfordshire. I was diaconated with Sarah in readiness for the priesthood, which I entered on my birthday on the feast of St Bonaventure in 1990. “An interesting observation was made [as reported in The Visitor magazine]: ‘During the anointing ceremony, at which time Come Holy Ghost, Creator Come was being sung, a shimmering light hovered over the head of the candidate being ordained. This was noticed by a deacon and also appeared on some photographs. The phenomenon remains unexplained save it being the presence of the Holy Spirit.’ There were three photographers present and the inexplicable golden illumination (appearing to descend and enter the rear of my head) was recorded on several of their independently taken pictures. Four of these photographs were later published in our Church magazine.” [The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, page 94.]

Aura during the ordination of the author into the priesthood at the moment of the anointing of his hands and head.

My ordination was not received well by everyone. It proved to be a catalyst in many ways. Certain people, including some who considered themselves allies, cooled almost instantaneously. While my parents welcomed this calling to the priesthood, otherswere less able to cope. One contacted Westminster Cathedral to protest. The cardinal’s spokesman was exceptionally supportive and understanding. I was even asked whether I would consider becoming a Roman Catholic priest. There are some married priests in the Roman fold, but their duties are limited and low key. They are invariably those already in holy orders elsewhere who convert to Rome. I had been a Roman Catholic in my youth, and it was not for me. The Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ is my home.

Entering holy orders was a pivotal moment, as I always knew it would be, and led to my eventually accepting the precious mitre on the feast of St Francis of Assisi in the following year, and later being installed as the Bishop of Glastonbury. Sarah and I felt a strong affinity with this ancient place of Christian pilgrimage ― it was the obvious location for the central focus of our autocephalous jurisdiction that extends throughout the British Isles. Once we were away from London and the dark shadow of the past, Sarah seemed to blossom and find herself. It was wonderful to behold.

Sarah dancing in the fields ~ Glastonbury Tor can be seen in the background.

To continue to read fragments of Seán Manchester’s unpublished memoir click on book è &

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The preceding seventeen fragments were online until 11 February 2004 when they became expurgated.

The above text and pictures from Stray Ghosts by Seán Manchester (unpublished memoir) are copyright protected and cannot be reproduced without consent.