CONTESTED HERITAGE IN CATHEDRALS AND CHURCHES REPORT 2021

This guidance addresses issues of contested heritage in the Church of England’s cathedral and church buildings,their settings and their historic interiors.

It is written primarily for parishes and cathedral chapters who need to address their contested heritage, and for the advisory and decision-making committees and individuals that support them within the Church and in the heritage sector. This is a complex subject that requires a thorough discussion of the issues and this guidance is necessarily long. A shorter guide, intended as an introduction for those considering this subject for the first time, is available on our website.

The guidance does not attempt to address every type of contested heritage in church buildings: it focusses on the issue of the memorialisation in tangible form of people or events connected with racism and slavery. It is hoped, however, that it may establish a methodology with which other forms of contested heritage in our cathedral and church buildings may also be addressed.

Our guidance recognises the distinctiveness of contested heritage in a church context. This work supports the mission of the Church by helping churches to be places of welcome and solace for all people. At its heart is the fourth Mark of Mission, which enjoins everyone in the Anglican Communion:

To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation.

The purpose of the guidance is to provide a practical framework for addressing issues of contested heritage in relation to specific historic objects in a church or cathedral context. The passions around this—on all sides—mean that there needs to be open dialogue. Our aim has been to find ways of mediating discussion that will help churches and cathedrals and their wider communities to develop solutions that will ultimately tackle the issues behind the feelings that contentious memorials evoke. It is important to remember that this is not about judging people in the past by the standards of the present, but about how items of contested heritage and wider issues of under-representation affect our ability to be a Church for all in the 21st century.

Full Report available here