Brighton's cathedral welcomes hundreds to reopening

Despite the torrential rain, hundreds of people turned out for the long-awaited reopening of a historic church.

Between 300 and 400 people of all ages arrived at St Peter's Church, in York Place, Brighton, for the 10am service today.

Three services are taking place, one at 8.30am, one at 10am and one at 6pm, attracting churchgoers from other parts of Sussex and London.

St Peter's, an iconic building known as Brighton's cathedral, faced closure after congregation numbers fell and structural problems put it in financially difficulties.

But Anglican group Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), which first developed the Alpha Course, agreed to take over the running of the church.

The Grade II listed church is still under Church of England control but has been leased by the Chichester Diocesan Fund and Board of Finance to HTB, who are maintaining the building and running the services.

The parish and benefice of Brighton and St Peter with the Chapel Royal has been dissolved and two new benefices created – Brighton The Chapel Royal and Brighton St Peter.

Comments(15)

tinkywinky says...
5:22pm Sun 1 Nov 09

Put a big dome on it and turn it into a mosque. It will be busy all the time then.

cheezburger says...
5:34pm Sun 1 Nov 09

First of all it is not a cathedral, stop that nonsense. And secondly it is not historic. Just because it is old doesnt make it special. That religion is over and the church should be knocked down.

bigduff says...
6:07pm Sun 1 Nov 09

whats a cathdral?

sussexone says...
6:17pm Sun 1 Nov 09

Religious nonsense, this church has no local support, apart from the odd 50 or so who regularly went,now they have to import worshippers from London and outside of Brighton! Says a lot doesn't it!

It is a historic building, perhaps it would be better used as a performing arts space/community facility, or how about turn it into shops/flats or a night club! Much more useful to the majority of people, and would get used and
properly maintained!

Cue the usual response from the God squad!

stan bailey says...
10:24pm Sun 1 Nov 09

Isn't St Bartholomew's more Cathedral like in space,and isn't Chichester our diocese? Is there a Bishop of brighton?

lorrie2 says...
6:09am Mon 2 Nov 09

St peters isnt a cathedral !!! sort it out argus, get your facts right before printing rubbish

tinkywinky says...
9:32am Mon 2 Nov 09

If there were that many people there, they must have been giving something away. Probably free alcohol.

Christophe Hawtree says...
10:50am Mon 2 Nov 09

Yet another "iconic" building!

Can we please have an end of this adjective.

interestedpartyperson says...
12:00pm Mon 2 Nov 09

Went to service at St Peters on Sunday. It was amazing. The sermon was really relevant. The people who attended were of every culture and age. And it was a lot of fun. I can see why 6500 local people signed a petition to keep the building open. It has so much potential as a place of worship. And it was lively and fun on Sunday!

logicub says...
1:13pm Mon 2 Nov 09

A quote from 'InterestedPartyPers
on' - "I can see why 6500 local people signed a petition to keep the building open."

Two quotes from the story - "Between 300 and 400 people of all ages arrived at St Peter's Church" and
"attracting churchgoers from other parts of Sussex and London."

My calculator isn't to hand I'm afraid, would someone else do the maths here?
That's a lot of people that didn't want to see the church gone, but still don't care to cross the door step. This sums up the attitude of a lot of people; when faced with the question "Do you believe in a god?", the automatic response is along the lines of "Sure, why not" because most people have never given it a second thought. Religion is so ingrained into society that the reflex answer is "yes".

chris elmes says...
3:39pm Mon 2 Nov 09

Regrettably St Peters cannot be a cathedral as its orientation is north-south, cathedrals are orientated east-west.

delightedoftunbridgewells says...
6:08pm Mon 2 Nov 09

The argument of whether St Peter's is a Cathedral or not is not relevant as the article neither suggests nor claims that it is.

The 2nd paragraph clearly says:

Between 300 and 400 people of all ages arrived at St Peter's Church, in York Place, Brighton, for the 10am service today.

(NB Church not Cathederal).

I agree that the word cathedral is used in the title however since it is lower case it is different - a bit like God and god! That is someone could be described as a football god but the writer would not be claiming that they were God or God-like.

Paragraph four also says the building is "known as Brighton's cathedral" not the build "is Brighton's cathederal". Sounds more like an affectionate term used by locals rather than anything else!


delightedoftunbridgewells says...
6:12pm Mon 2 Nov 09

Bit of dyslexia creeping in there sorry! Replace all mentions of "cathederal" with "cathedral" in my last post!

Mr Lahey says...
12:22pm Wed 4 Nov 09

logicub wrote:
A quote from 'InterestedPartyPers on' - "I can see why 6500 local people signed a petition to keep the building open." Two quotes from the story - "Between 300 and 400 people of all ages arrived at St Peter's Church" and "attracting churchgoers from other parts of Sussex and London." My calculator isn't to hand I'm afraid, would someone else do the maths here? That's a lot of people that didn't want to see the church gone, but still don't care to cross the door step. This sums up the attitude of a lot of people; when faced with the question "Do you believe in a god?", the automatic response is along the lines of "Sure, why not" because most people have never given it a second thought. Religion is so ingrained into society that the reflex answer is "yes".
that's a 5.4% attendance / petition ratio right there (350 / 6500)

logicub says...
5:21pm Wed 4 Nov 09

Mr Lahey wrote:
logicub wrote:
A quote from 'InterestedPartyPers on' - "I can see why 6500 local people signed a petition to keep the building open." Two quotes from the story - "Between 300 and 400 people of all ages arrived at St Peter's Church" and "attracting churchgoers from other parts of Sussex and London." My calculator isn't to hand I'm afraid, would someone else do the maths here? That's a lot of people that didn't want to see the church gone, but still don't care to cross the door step. This sums up the attitude of a lot of people; when faced with the question "Do you believe in a god?", the automatic response is along the lines of "Sure, why not" because most people have never given it a second thought. Religion is so ingrained into society that the reflex answer is "yes".
that's a 5.4% attendance / petition ratio right there (350 / 6500)
and a number of them weren't even from Brighton! I would hazard a guess that those people won't be making Brighton their regular Sunday haunt...

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