The Former Ark Of The Covenant

The Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord — long known as the Ark of the Covenant — stands on Rookwood Road on the border of Upper Clapton and Stamford Hill in the London Borough of Hackney, a few yards from Clapton Common. Since opening in 1892 it has served as the sole London outpost of three very different Christian denominations: built as the Agapemonite Church of the Ark of the Covenant, headquarters of a late-Victorian Christian cult; reborn from 1956 to 2007 as the Church of the Good Shepherd of the now-defunct Ancient Catholic Church; and since 2011 a Georgian Orthodox cathedral. It is a Grade II* listed building, partly for its exceptional Arts and Crafts stained glass and partly for its extraordinary history — its incumbents have included two patriarchs, an archbishop and a self-proclaimed Messiah, though the longest tenure belonged to a woman, the Reverend Schroder. Its stone steeple, ringed by strange statues, rises above the surrounding buildings and trees as a landmark visible across the neighbourhood.

The church was built between 1892 and 1895 by Joseph Morris and Son of Reading, in stone in the neo-Gothic style, with a capacity of 400; Morris's daughter, the architect Violet Morris, may have assisted with the design — like her sister, the wood carver Olive Morris, she was a resident of the Agapemone. It was the London base for the Agapemonites' rising star, John Smyth-Pigott, who became the sect's leader — "the Beloved" — in 1899 after the death of its founder. The Agapemonites were a controversial nineteenth-century religious sect whose leaders had been Anglican ministers, though the sect is not generally considered a form of Anglicanism; Smyth-Pigott was defrocked by the Church of England in 1909, six years after declaring himself the Messiah. Thanks to the number of heiresses in their "Abode of Love" at Spaxton in Somerset, they were unusually well funded: sources put the building cost at £15,000 or £20,000 — a lavish sum for the era. Inside, instead of an altar, the Ark of the Covenant had a chair for the Beloved.

The iconography is unlike any other London church, saturated in the Book of Revelation — for the Agapemonites believed the end of the world was imminent. The tower statuary and at least some internal stone carving were designed by Arthur George Walker and judged "accomplished" by English Heritage. Two sets of the four beasts of the tetramorph — ox, lion, eagle and winged man — surround the building: in stone around the entrance, where they are shown crushing human figures, and in bronze at the corners of the tower's top around the base of the spire, on pedestals carved with the words "God is Love". They have been read as the four evangelists — the winged ox for Luke, winged lion for Mark, eagle for John, angel for Matthew — or as the four beasts of Revelation. Because the Old Testament prophets Enoch and Elijah did not die but ascended to Heaven — a matter of particular significance to the sect — roundels on the tower and inside the church represent the chariot of Elijah and the Book of Enoch, and both prophets appeared in the stained glass of the apse.

That stained glass is the building's greatest treasure. The windows were designed by Walter Crane, the children's book illustrator and Arts and Crafts luminary, and made by Sylvester Sparrow — Crane's first stained glass commission in Britain and among Sparrow's first works. The designs mix Art Nouveau floral panels in the side windows — the "new Eden" the sect believed would follow the apocalypse — with depictions of sin, shame and the rise of the sun of righteousness; the west end portrays the end of the world the Agapemonites expected at any moment. English Heritage calls the glass Crane's "most significant work in this medium", noting it "is extraordinary and has more than special interest in the context of Arts and Crafts stained glass". The Builder's 1896 review struggled for restraint: "it is difficult to write without superlatives; for richness and magnificence of colour we believe it never has been, and is not likely to be, surpassed". John Betjeman later pronounced it "the richest Victorian glass I have ever seen" — though it has also been described, less admiringly, as "illustrating woman's submission to man". The hammerbeam roof is "splendid" in English Heritage's judgment, with benches, lectern and pulpit whose woodcarvings are attributed to Olive Morris.

The Ark's first act ended in spectacular scandal. In 1902 or 1903, Smyth-Pigott declared himself to be Jesus Christ — but declined to walk over Clapton Pond — and had to be protected by police from a mob of thousands. He took refuge at the Spaxton community, where he died in 1927; his grave was left open for some time in expectation of his resurrection. None of his grandchildren would continue the ministry, the movement dwindled, and the last of the ladies of the Abode of Love died in 1956. Sources differ on whether the London church stood completely disused for the intervening half-century or whether some Agapemonites continued to meet discreetly in its basement.

In 1956 the building began its second life as the Church of the Good Shepherd, home of the Ancient Catholic Church founded by Harry Nicholson, a priest and later Primate of the Catholic Apostolic Church who had left that body before moving into the disused Agapemonite church. Nicholson served as Primate until his death in 1968; his successor, a Mr Schroder, led until 1985, and the third and final leader was Schroder's widow Pamela who, as Reverend Schroder, led the church for another twenty-two years until her own death. A court then ruled that the Ancient Catholic Church had in effect ceased to exist with her passing and could not benefit from her will; the denomination was dissolved, and the building's dedication to the Good Shepherd soon ended.

The third act began in 2011, when the building became the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lord, seat of the Georgian Orthodox Eparchy of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of the original 1890s features survive, though an iconostasis bearing many Georgian icons now shields the altar from public view — hiding some of the Crane glass with it — and an altar long ago replaced the Beloved's chair, most likely during the Ancient Catholic years. Few buildings anywhere have travelled so strange a road: from millenarian cult palace to tiny independent church to Orthodox cathedral, all beneath the same bronze beasts proclaiming, at the corners of the spire, that God is Love.