This coming Sunday marks our Dedication Festival. It celebrates the consecration of the church as a place of Christian worship.

We know that there has been a church on this site since the early tenth century. Recent archaeological excavations at Oriel reveal that the church was built at the East Gate of the original Anglo-Saxon settlement (just as St Michael's stood at the North Gate). There was a church marking each of the gates of the city. Each would have been consecrated, and the Anglo-Saxon rites, which were required by the Synod of Chelsea in 816, show that the Bishop would have “baptised” the original building and churchyard by sprinkling with holy water (inside and outside). It would probably have been the Bishop of Dorchester who performed the rite, as the See of Dorchester was the Anglo-Saxon diocese before the Normans created the Diocese of Lincoln. Then in 1189, a new church was constructed and consecrated by St Hugh of Lincoln. Eventually, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the University grew, a third church was built on the current site. This is the church that we see today.

Such a long and extensive history of public worship and Christian witness should be a source of thanksgiving, and so each year we give thanks for the dedication of this Church and we renew our commitment to serve our parish and the University.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light,
look favourably on your whole Church,
that wonderful and sacred mystery,
and by the tranquil operation of your perpetual providence
carry out the work of our salvation:
and let the whole world feel and see
that things which were cast down are being raised up
and things which had grown old are being made new
and that all things are returning to perfection
through him from whom they took their origin,
even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.