Mumsnet Talk

I am very uninformed on the subject of Christianity, as I grew up in a predominantly Muslim country and my parents never discussed religion much. My knowledge of the subject is gleaned from reading lots of Tudor history + Charlotte Bronte books and watching the series 'Rev'

I get the impression (from Bronte in particular) that one 'idea' of Protestantism was to do away with much of the celebration of Saint's days etc and to just focus on God/the Holy Trinity. Why do many of the older churches in England still tend to be named after Saints in that case? It's been over 400 years, surely they could have got round to organising renaming committees by now.... and yes, I know that there are still Catholics in the UK. I imagine it's safe to say that the majority of older churches would have catered to a Protestant congregation at some point though.

It's not my intention to offend anyone and I'm sorry if this is a really stupid question but it has intrigued me!

That's quite an interesting question. A lot of Protestant (by which I mean Church of England, rather than Methodist, Baptist etc) churches are still named after saints, but to a large extent they take the names of the saints who wrote the gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And I think those saints are taken very seriously by Protestants, much more so than the later saints that Catholics tend to be quite keen on. Catholic Churches often have references to the Virgin Mary in their name, which is highly unusual (if not unknown) in a Protestant church.

Quite happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable if I'm wrong.

The Church of England came to be because Henry VIII wanted to get rid of his wife without having her killed for one reason or another and the Catholic church wasn't having any of it. So it was basically the same as Catholicism just with a different name. Queen Elizabeth added a few morals to it during her reign and other than that protestantism doesn't differ hugely from the catholicism in the UK (I will probably get flamed for saying this).

In France for example there are far more differences between Protestantism and Catholicism.

I agree with you on the Tudor bit, Viking - the new church was a by-product of Henry wanting to divorce Catherine! However I got the impression from various bits of fictional literature that Protestants in the 17th/18th centuries did look down on Catholicism rather, with all its finery and many many saints. Do Protestants these days celebrate anything to do with any saints in particular?

My definition of Protestant corresponds with Hackmum's btw.

Well, Viking's definition is certainly inventive.

Don't forget that in Henry VIII's reign, Martin Luther had started a new movement in Europe that rejected certain key principles of Catholicism, in particular the idea that you needed a priest to intercede between a lay person and God, and the idea of transubstantiation during holy communion. So the new church was based partly on Lutheran principles.

" It's been over 400 years, surely they could have got round to organising renaming committees by now.... "

I think you are overestimating the rate of change in the good old Church of England!

The Church of England didn't do away with the Saints though. They didn't continue to celebrate feast days in the same way as Catholics do but they still recognise many of them as Saints so there is no need to rename them. Also, the C of E is a broad church so to speak. Whilst the low church is very different to the Catholic Church, the high church can be virtually indistinguishable.

Not all protestants are Church of England, so there are a range of attitudes to saints.

True, but I think this poster is referring to C of E rather than Protestantism in general.

The Church of England didn't do away with saints.

In the Creed (which is the official statement of important beliefs that you recite), until very, very recently it was compulsory to say you believed in 'the communion of saints'. This means, all the people who've died in the faith of Christ.

The difference between Catholicism and the C of E is that in medieval Catholicism, people prayed to saints, as intermediaries between themselves and God. There's always been a technical difference between the kind of respect you have for a saint (who is a dead and holy person), and the kind you have for God (who is divine). But increasingly, in late medieval Catholicism, the line was blurred and people were mega, mega keen on their saints. Some people worried that ignorant or superstitious believers were effectively worshipping the saints instead of getting close to God.

So, when the Church of England came in under Elizabeth, the idea was that you wouldn't pray to saints and they had a reduced role. But they're still hugely important in the Church of England, as examples of holy people who can show us how to live. So there's no reason we wouldn't name churches after them.

Then, to complicate things, since the nineteenth century there has been a movement within the Church of England towards Catholicism, so some Church of England people are 'Anglo Catholic', and they are keener on saints again.

The Church of England isn't really at all like Protestantism as it happened on the Continent or in Scotland. Calvin and Martin Luther both had ideas about what a Protestant Church should be like, and both sets of ideas influenced the Church of England, but it basically did go its own way.

Attitudes to saints do vary a lot. My end of things (Baptist) would argue that the word 'saint' originally (i.e. in the New Testament and the very early church) just meant 'Christian', so in that sense all Christians are saints. This doesn't mean that we're especially good in fact we're often crap, just that we're Christian. Some Protestants would go a little further and identify and commemorate particular exceptional Christians as 'saints', but wouldn't pray to them as Catholics would. Although even in Catholicism you technically only ask the saint to intercede for you with God, if that makes sense...the saint doesn't have independent power of his/her own, only the power he/she has through God.

You'd think with a monster post like that I wouldn't need to double-post. I am such an idiot.

But - what I'm getting at is, the attitude towards saints that the C of E was reacting against is not the modern, post-Vatican II Catholic attitude to saints. The Catholic Church has massively toned down its views on saints, and medieval Catholicism is quite different from modern Catholicism.

So, yes, the C of E did shift its stance relative to the Catholic Church, but you've got to know just how hugely passionate the medieval Catholic Church was about saints in order to get the comparison.

About to say what others have. Protestants still believe in saints they just don't 'worship' them in the same way Catholics do, same as Mary.

The reformation had more to do with Martin Luther and the printing press than Henry wanting a divorce. But it sounds more dramatic so that is what is believed.

The old churches have had their names for hundreds of years.Why would you change them? It's like saying, "Oh we dont use the name Boadicea now let's call her Beyonce instead!"
What would you but in place of the Saints' names?
Church of the sacred iPad perhaps?
How about "Let's be married at the Dr Who chapel?"
Or would you rather just call them by the street names?
High Street Church or something. I'd rather keep the history,dignity and reverence of the old names.We are talking about churches not strip clubs after all.

Catholics don't worship saints.

Catholics venerate saints and worship God.

Worshipping a saint is idolatry in a Catholic context just as it is in a Protestant one.

thegrey - if my church was 'St Beyonce of the Fields' I would so go.

But you are right. I love church names, they are so evocative. Especially when the names are names that have fallen out of us - St Botolph, for example!

thegreylady when did I say I wanted to change the names?! I merely asked a question about them!

I'm sure that a C of E congregation could come up with a suitable new name for their church if so challenged (and I'm not saying they need changing, just that I am mildly surprised they haven't been). The only person suggesting irreverent substitutions is you!

Herrena I was trying to be a bit tongue in cheek-I failed
Just meant that I didnt see any reason to change them nor could I see an appropriate 'contemporary' alternative.

Agree with thegreylady - why change them.

But they are suitable names, I think (the originals, not grey's versions! ).

Some of these names go back to the very early days of Christianity, before the Catholic Church split off from the Eastern Churches. One of the aims of the C of E was to go back and rediscover the spirit of the early Church, so this is really important. If they were renamed, we'd lose that history.

The CofE did not do away with Saints as has been mentioned.

Also the CofE has a wide range of believes from the Anglo-Catholic right to very Protestant.

I was once at a meeting lead by a member of a more evangelical church who said that someones church was saint this or that they all run together, and also criticised hymn singing. Christians of a very Protestant mind go elsewhere!

btw I go to a 1970's built church named after two Saints! But there are CofE churches called Holy Cross, Holy Trinity and probably more.

That expresses it perfectly LRD

I love Church history.

Btw, redwing, your post about 'Holy Cross' reminds me - there's a church near me called 'Saint Cross'. It just means 'Holy Cross'. So that's a reminder that the word 'saint' really did just mean 'holy' for a long period of time, and it's only in the last 400 years or so it's come to refer specifically to a holy person.

didn't the confusion about the saints come about with translation and the confusion of the dative case in latin - 'pray for the saints' as oppose to 'pray to the saints'.

church names are very much part of British history. One of our local churches is St Martins. He gave his cloak to a beggar (sure he did other good things as well)

I'd not heard of that - you mean someone mistook an ablative for a dative, or vice versa? When?