The Grail Church

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Dear Bishop Manchester, I recently heard your talk on TalkSport Radio and so looked up your website concerning the Grail Church. How does one become part of the Grail Church I wonder? I would be very interested in finding out more about the Grail Church and wonder if it may be possible to meet you at your retreat sometime? Yours faithfully in Christ, Wayne.

The Church of Christ is never a place, but always a people; never a fold, but always a flock; never a sacred building, but always where believers gather in His name. The Church is you who pray, not where you pray. A structure of brick and marble can no more be a Church than your clothes of serge or satin can be you. There is nothing more sacred than you — for your soul is the sanctuary of God.

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Christianity came to Britain in the first century. Tertullian of Carthage (circa 208) said that the Christian Church of his day "extended to all the boundaries of Gaul, and parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans but subject to Christ." Eusebius of Cæsaria (circa 260-340) in his Demonstratio Evangelica said: "The Apostles passed beyond the ocean to the Isles called the Brittanic Isles." Sabellius (circa 250) revealed: "Christianity was privately confessed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion and called it Christian, after the name of Christ, was Britain." Polydore Vergil, court antiquary to Henry VIII and a foremost scholar of his day, wrote: "Britain partly through Joseph of Arimathea, partly through Fugatus and Damianus, was of all kingdoms first to receive the Gospel."

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Gildas, the British historian, in the sixth century, wrote: "We certainly know that Christ, the True Son, afforded His Light, the knowledge of His precepts to our Island in the last year of Tiberius Cæsar." Elsewhere he affirmed that "Joseph introduced Christianity into Britain in the last year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar." Tiberius died on 16 March AD 37, which supports the traditional date for St Joseph of Arimathea mission to Britain of AD 36. Britain was outside the Roman Empire, as the Claudian invasion did not occur until AD 43.
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Martin of Louvain, in his Disputoilis Super Dignitatem Anglis it [sic] Gallioe in Councilio Constantiano (1517), recorded: "Three times the antiquity of the British Church was affirmed in Ecclesiatical Councilia. (1) The Council of Pisa, AD 1417. (2) The Council of Constance, AD 1419. (3) Council of Siena, AD 1423. It was stated that the British Church took precedence over all other churches, being founded by Joseph of Arimathea, immediately after the Passion of Christ."
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On page 87 of The Grail Church, I wrote: "To the native Celts the Grail Church became known as the British Church; so as to distinguish it from the Anglo-Saxon English Church. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman Christianity the British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated; indeed, its symbolic potency only grew with the passing of time."
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The Holy Grail was considered to be a relic of inestimable value as the Cup of the Last Supper that was later used by St Joseph of Arimathea to collect a few drops of the Saviour's blood. Apocryphal writings credit St Joseph with possession of the Cup.
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"Cardinal Baronius, curator of the Vatican Library and certainly the most outstanding historian of the Roman Catholic Church, writes in his Ecclesiastical Annals in reference to the exodus of AD 36: 'In that year the party mentioned was exposed to the sea in a vessel without sails or oars. The vessel drifted finally to Marseilles and they were saved. From Marseilles [St] Joseph [of Arimathea] and his company passed into Britain and after preaching the Gospel there, died'." [The Grail Church, Holy Grail, 1995, page 30.] 
 

Thus the Holy Grail came to the British Isles where, six centuries later, it went missing. In later legends, as a result of the Holy Grail being lost, the country was strangely afflicted with large areas becoming an uninhabitable wasteland. Those who ventured there died. And a sixth century monk named Gildas wrote a history [Gildæ sapientis de excidio et conquestu Britanniæ] which spoke of a great famine and disease that rendered the island of Britain virtually uninhabitable, resulting in mass migration to the Continent. He attributes the catastrophe to the Britons' loss of faith. There are parallels with then and now. A steep decline in moral attitudes and social behaviour, plus, more significantly, the distortion and loss of faith, makes us ripe for a coming wasteland. There is a difference, however, because this time it might be on a global scale.
 

On Good Friday 1973 twelve people founded Ordo Sancti Graal on the summit of Parliament Hill at London’s Hampstead Heath. Following three months of spontaneous occurrences, they developed into a dispersed Order of disciples with both radical and traditional approach. By this point the principal founder, namely myself, was in minor orders within an autocephalous branch of the Catholic Church in Great Britain. Seventeen years after the founding of Ordo Sancti Graal, I took Holy Orders and was later episcopally consecrated by three independent Catholic bishops.
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I contributed 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 which 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 Cup’s location remains undisclosed.
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Christianity came to Britain in the first century and is the essence of our civilisation. Lose it and we lose everything. The consequence of that loss is already apparent. On page 87 of The Grail Church is written: “To the native Celts the Grail Church became known as the British Church; so as to distinguish it from the Anglo-Saxon English Church. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman Christianity the British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated; indeed, its symbolic potency only grew with the passing of time.”

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Traditional Christianity is disappearing as atheism, relativism and heresy spread on a scale hitherto unseen. The primary purpose of the work begun at Easter 1973 is to provide spiritual sanctuary in a land awash with soul-killing materialism and moral bankruptcy by actively seeking to reclaim Britain for Christ.
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A table for twelve is always set at the Order's private retreat and chapel in England. This number represents those who joined at the founding of the Order inaugurated on Good Friday 1973 at the summit of Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, London. The Order belongs to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church which autocepahlous jurisdiction under our primacy is universally known as Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi.
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Novi et æterni testamenti — it is the priest who recites these words at the consecration of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord — Hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei: novi et æterni testamenti. We stand for this inheritance which Jesus Christ gave to us. It is His Sacrifice, it is His Blood, it is His Cross, the ferment of all Christian civilisation and of all that is necessary for salvation. The Order exists for the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the love of the Church, for the love of bishops, of priests, of all the faithful, for the salvation of the world, and for the salvation of souls. By keeping the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by keeping His Sacrifice, by keeping the Eucharist — the Eucharist which has been bequeathed to us by our predecessors, the Eucharist which has been transmitted from the time of the Apostles unto this day — we shall hold fast to what is true.
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When the precious mitre was placed upon my head on the feast of St Francis of Assisi in 1991, I already understood that a crown of thorns was contained within. I said as much in a radio interview soon afterwards in the United Kingdom. And for those who make the choice to take up their cross and follow Him, there begins a journey where space and time is transcended — a journey that will never taste death.
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This life is a dream from which death is merely an awakening.

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