On Sunday 24<sup>th</sup> October the Bishop of Edmonton visited St Matthias Colindale to celebrate the 48<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the dedication of the Parish Church, and to dedicate the new icon of Saint Mellitus.
100 years ago the suburb of Colindale was just coming into being in the green fields between Hendon and Edgware. Its first Anglican place of worship was an “iron chapel" in Colindeep Lane, dedicated to Saint Mellitus as it was a new mission area and Mellitus was the missionary sent from Rome who became Bishop of London in the year 604. As the suburb grew, however, the first chapel was taken out of use and the dedication to Mellitus was lost. The northern part of the mission territory became the Parish of St Alphage, Burnt Oak, and the southern part became the Parish of Saint Matthias, Colindale, worshipping in a hall built in the 1930s. The bell from the old iron chapel was saved and recast for the new parish.
After fundraising in the local community, the new Parish Church of Saint Matthias was built alongside the hall in a striking and beautiful modern style, and was dedicated in October 1973 by Bishop Alan Rogers of Edmonton. At the same time the side chapel was dedicated to “Our Lady and Saint Mellitus” to commemorate the original dedication of the mission district. A beautiful carved wooden image of Our Lady and Child was installed in the chapel, but there was no visible reminder of its joint dedication to Saint Mellitus. Mindful of this, in 2019 the PCC commissioned Russian iconographer Tatiana Kolibaba to paint an icon of Saint Mellitus to be installed in the chapel as a focus of prayer, and as an encouragement for our own mission in Colindale today. The figure of Mellitus is inspired by that on the icon in St Paul’s Cathedral, and the open book he is holding displays the text of Mark 16.15: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation”. We were delighted that the present Bishop of Edmonton was able to return to the church his predecessor consecrated to formally dedicate our new icon.
Beneath the icon is a small shrine containing a relic of Saint Mellitus, which the present parish priest discovered in an antique shop in Vienna in 1998. Before the Reformation the relics of Saint Mellitus were enshrined alongside Augustine himself in Saint Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, and were much resorted to by pilgrims suffering from gout. It is surmised that portions of these relics were distributed elsewhere in Europe through the networks that existed between monasteries, and so some have survived to our own day. (Relics of Saint Augustine of Canterbury and of Saint Laurence, his immediate successor, can be seen today in Pugin’s shrine church of Saint Augustine in Ramsgate, Kent.)
It was a joy to welcome the largest in-person congregation since the pandemic to this celebration, along with those who were able to follow the service online. Guests included MP for Hendon Dr Matthew Offord, London Assembly Member Anne Clarke, and Tutor and Lecturer Joseph Diwakar representing Saint Mellitus College. Deputy Lieutenant Martin Russell sent a message of prayer and greeting. After the service, the Bishop and elected representatives met Fr Grigore Pașcu and members of the Romanian Orthodox Church of Saint Leontie, who now worship in the hall which once housed the Church of England congregation.
As the area of Colindale looks to the future and the changes and challenges that will be brought by regeneration, we are encouraged by our fellowship with the saints and missionaries of the past, and inspired by their example to join in God’s movement into the world in our own day.