What’s the point of celebrating an anniversary?

How Liverpool Cathedral galvanised the heart of a community.

Stuart Haynes

Stuart is communications director for the Diocese of Liverpool.

Two cans of beer depict a drawing of a cathedral.

Raise a toast!

Liverpool Cathedral

2024 was a momentous year for Liverpool Cathedral as we celebrate our centenary. To be honest we also had some celebrations in 2004 and could look at something for nearly every year up until 2078 if we put our mind to it. Is this seemingly random selection of a date merely a marketing trick. What is the point of marking or celebrating an anniversary?

We are all used to anniversaries. At the very least every person has the anniversary of their birth to mark. Added to that we have weddings, work anniversaries and numerous other opportunities to mark past achievements. For many it can get tiresome seeing another anniversary being paraded through the media.

For Liverpool Cathedral choosing to mark the centenary of our consecration in 1924 was significant. The centenary provided a galvanising factor for the cathedral community. It provided the impetus for us to try to secure our building through a number of improvement projects and our financial position by a massive fundraising initiative.

We also, inevitably, planned a year of celebration worthy of a centenary bringing world class artist Anish Kapoor to exhibit, hosting a series focusing on our architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and culminating in being one of the Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps. A first-class stamp for a first-class cathedral.

Central to our celebrations was our Peoples Service in July which marked the anniversary of the cathedral’s consecration. This reached to the heart of why we did this and why our anniversary celebrations were so important.

Celebrating our centenary pointed to the spiritual heart and essence of us as a cathedral. We believe we were built by the people for the people and our purpose is to serve. Our history mirrors the history of Liverpool in the twentieth century, sharing joys and angsts, triumphs and tragedies. So many who visit us have a personal connection to the cathedral, a story to tell that binds them into our story. To be true to this our celebrations brought these before the God we believe in to celebrate and link these together as a reminder of the values and purpose which drive us on a daily basis.

We also brought together people to celebrate and thank them for the role they play. For it is the people that make and drive our cathedral. Our volunteers, staff, congregations, visitors all bring the human element that bring true life and joy to the cathedral. The different ways in which they engage with the buildings beautiful, majestic architecture and use its great space fulfil the historic purpose that those who envisioned, created and built this place had.

By rooting ourselves in our history and our traditional values we are reminded of our duty to future generations. Celebrating our centenary brought home the faithful dedication of the many whose vision brought this magnificent building into being. Knowing that, we treat what could otherwise become familiar with more respect and awe. As a consequence, we are inspired to ensure that the cathedral remains an integral part of people’s story in the future.

By offering this to the God we believe in we are reminded that those who brought Liverpool Cathedral into existence did it to honour and worship that God. Liverpool Cathedral, like all cathedrals and churches, is meant to stand as a representation of Christ’s presence in our communities. A place of timeless reliability. The edifice of Liverpool Cathedral standing proud on the cityscape offers comfort to the city’s people even those who haven’t yet been through our doors. Celebrating that fact gives both a sense that we still remain a vibrant place, offering a range of activities and events gives a reason for people to take that first step across our threshold.

It could easily be argued that you don’t need an anniversary to do that but moments help. In a marriage we celebrate the ruby, pearl, silver golden anniversaries but not so much on year 17. Having an excuse to do something, to be focussed, link our past to our future and above all to celebrate the people who inspire us on the way.

2024 was a great anniversary for Liverpool Cathedral. Here’s to the next.

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Article

Awe and wonder

Community

Creed

20 December 2024

4 min read

Cathedrals are making a comeback, here’s why

From soft toys to crisis moments, these flagships hold much more than our stories.

David Ison

David was the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral for ten years until retiring in 2022.

A puppet donkey peaks over the edge of a cathedral pulpit

Family carol service, St Paul's Cathedral.

What is it about cathedrals? Under a secular French government, €700 million has been spent on renewing Notre-Dame Cathedral after the 2019 fire disaster. The money hasn’t however come from French taxpayers, but from donations large and small by people in France and from across the world. And the number of people entering cathedrals to visit, or pray, or meet with others keeps going up, even as church attendance declines and religion seems out of fashion – so what’s going on?

Building a large church is a long and very costly process, and Christian communities could take a century or more to build or upgrade a cathedral as resources became available. In lands where Christian faith was embraced by those in power, governments would help to build and endow cathedrals. They were not only central points for worship and church life in their area, but were large covered meeting spaces which were also used by the state for synods, coronations, meetings or services which supported political life and enhanced social cohesion. Communities and rulers wanted to have the best and biggest building they could, to the glory of God (and also that of its builders): and cathedrals were a focus for the best that could be found in architecture and art, sermons in stone and stained glass, colourful high-rise marvels inspiring the inhabitants of an often ugly and dingy low-rise world.

So what explains the enduring attraction of cathedrals, and the emotional bonds between these buildings and us which the rebuilding of Notre Dame has highlighted?

For a start, these buildings are the holders of stories and identities. We humans love a good story. We want to hear, see and tell stories; to make a story out of our own life; to be part of a bigger story which gives us identity and meaning. In cathedrals, I’ve met visitors and pilgrims eager to know the history, in other words the story of such an amazing place and all it contains. There are the visitors writing their own stories who take a picture of their cuddly toy at each tourist destination. And there are the men and women at a crisis point. in their own story who come in search of forgiveness or hope or love, and begin to find it in the great story of God, Jesus and the Christian faith to which a cathedral bears witness.

That holding of identity isn’t only individual, of course. The tragedy of 2019 in Paris was felt across the world, because Notre Dame with its glorious architecture and its treasures is a part of the world’s story with which millions of people have become engaged through their visits and understanding; a tragedy felt of course most deeply in France, where the cathedral is entwined with French history and identity. Each cathedral, whatever its age or size, carries the story of its community and people, is part of our human story, of yours and mine. Their heritage is ours too. The story a cathedral tells about identity, faith and hope can enliven and inspire.

Then again, cathedrals are witnesses. Cathedrals don’t only host state occasions: their role is to be a place for people from a wide geographical and social area to meet and celebrate, worship, mourn, listen and learn. They are places where we are both affirmed and challenged. Whether it’s a local charity concert to help those in need, a major company anniversary, a seminar or a protest venue for people concerned about a hot political, social or religious topic, the mourners of a significant public figure, or a homeless person seeking dignity as well as shelter – cathedrals witness to the value of human life before God. As a cathedral Dean I went from greeting the monarch to talking with Terry the Big Issue seller: for a cathedral, all are beloved by God, and there to be welcomed.
While cathedrals hold story and identity, looking backwards, and witness to and focusing of a local or national community looking around them, you might imagine another axis of attraction as looking forward and upwards, ‘flagships of the Spirit’.

Cathedrals, like all churches, are metaphorical footprints of God in the world: spiritual space set aside to step outside ourselves and our everyday lives, to reflect, to pray and worship, to seek an encounter with the presence of God. When I worked at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, our aim was to enable people in all their diversity to encounter the transforming presence of God in Jesus Christ, whatever that would mean for them; and sometimes we succeeded. A survey of visitors entering cathedrals found that only 10 per cent of them were intending to do something spiritual; but when they came out, 40 per cent of them had prayed, lit a candle, spoken with a priest or gone to worship.