September 9, 2013
London, like virtually every other European city older than 500 years, was for a large part made up of churches and monasteries. Hence Erasmus could ask at the time of the Reformation, what is a city if not one big monastery? As early as 1300 London boasted over thirty churches and a dozen monasteries crammed […]
September 2, 2013
Fifty years ago on September 4, Robert Schuman passed away peacefully in his home in the little French village of Scy-Chazelles near Metz. A few weeks ago on our Continental Heritage Tour we visited the home of the ‘Father of Europe’, and the fortified medieval church of St Quentin across the road, his final resting […]
August 26, 2013
Driving across the border between Scotland and England on the east coast, we caught our first glimpse of the tiny island called Lindisfarne, which–we were to learn–profoundly influenced the culture and worldview of a fledgling England late in the first millennium. The silhouette of castle ruins on the island’s rocky bluff was echoed by the […]
August 12, 2013
Only two days into our Celtic heritage Tour, our group of 14 pilgrims is already deeply impacted by the depth and freshness of this significant stream of Christianity largely lost and forgotten by most of the Christian world for centuries. Half of our group has previously experienced the Continental Heritage Tour. Now we are exploring […]
August 5, 2013
‘Beware of Amsterdam … that provokes God in his face, in which Atheists and Devils have their abode.’ The Welsh preacher who issued this warning was not complaining about Saturday’s Gay Pride boat parade, a celebration of LHBT* lifestyles witnessed by several hundred thousand Amsterdammers and visitors lining the famous canals. These words were penned […]
July 15, 2013
The red sandstone Munster in Basel overlooks the majestic sweep of the Rhine River as it turns northward to define the border between France and Germany. Basel was one of our last stopovers of the Continental Heritage Tour which ended this weekend. Our group attended an organ recital in the Munster, which had also overseen […]
July 8, 2013
The presidential flag fluttering above the palace overloking the historic town centre of Prague proudly carries the Czech national motto ‘Pravda Vítézí’: truth prevails. Vaclav Havel, the playwright-dissident who became president of the newly democratic Czechoslovakia in 1989, made this phrase his own by declaring that ‘truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred’. […]
July 1, 2013
Tourism has been around much longer than the stereotypical ‘loud, cigar-puffing American’ of the popular imagination. The ‘Grand Tour’ of the 18th century, for example, was an essential rounding off of the education for élite young Europeans. Thomas Cook, a name still prominent in tourism today, laid claim to being founder of organised group tours […]
June 24, 2013
Did you catch the story last week about the man who cut through the iron curtain between Hungary and Austria? Gyula Horn, former Hungarian prime minister, died last wednesday, aged 80. Twenty-four years ago this week, on June 27, 1989, Horn, then foreign minister, and his Austrian counterpart staged a photo-opportunity to create what Horn […]
June 17, 2013
Fathers Day was celebrated in many European countries yesterday, the third Sunday in June. For various historical reasons, most of Switzerland marked this day two weeks ago, Austria and Belgium last weekend and most Nordic countries will wait until November. Down under in Australia and New Zealand, fathers will be honoured in September. But most […]
June 10, 2013
The most dangerous man in Tudor England, BBC2 viewers learned last Thursday evening, was the scholar who first penned in English such Biblical phrases as: ‘let there be light’, ‘filthy lucre’, ‘signs of the times’, ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, ‘sour grapes’, ‘rise and shine’ and many more. Melvyn Bragg’s insightful documentary on William […]
June 3, 2013
Human dignity and rights needed to be set free from religious foundations; only a secular basis could maintain their continued existence free from religious violence and tensions. At least, that was the learned opinion one of Holland’s best-known atheists expressed in a seminar last week in The Hague. Dr Margriet Krijtenburg, who spoke in Dublin […]
