A COMPLETE PARISH PRIEST PETER GREEN (1871-1961)
BY
FRANK P. SARGEANT
NUMBER 13 IN A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL PAPERS
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2011
BY THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC HISTORY SOCIETY
Revd Dr. Perry Butler, Chairman
George Brent Skelly, Secretary
24 Cloudesley Square, London N1 0HN
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Cover picture: Peter Green as a young man.
PETER GREEN 1871-1961
Rector of St Philip’s Salford Canon Residentiary of Manchester 1911-1951
Evangelist and Writer
[From the plaque at the east end of Manchester Cathedral]
This book is dedicated to the Memory of Peter Green on the fiftieth anniversary of his death on 17th November 1961
PETER GREEN’S CLAIM TO BE AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC
An extract from his Artifex column for 23rd August 1922 in the Manchester Guardian reads:
THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC CONGRESS
“I should define Anglo-Catholicism as Christianity as it appeals to the nation. That no presentation at the moment appeals to all sections of the nation merely shows that we have not yet succeeded in the working out a perfect Catholicism which shall contain all that is needed by all sections of a very wonderful complex national character.”
An extract from his Artifex column for 8th February 1933 reads:
THE PUSEYITES
“The Oxford Movement is about the only historical subject which I have studied with some thoroughness at first hand and in the original. I have read everything I could – biographies, histories, sermons, theological treatises and tracts. But my connection with the movement is something more than that of mere study. I was brought up in a Puseyite household. My father was of good old fashioned High Church stock of the Clapton sect. My mother, as a girl, would slip away to the centre of early ritualism, St Barnabas, Pimlico.
What then does the Oxford Movement stand for in my own experience? First of all it stands for reality in religion. The Book of Common Prayer has its rules for fasting and abstinence, its round of feasts and festivals. Whatever the case may be now, in my young days the Oxford Movement stood for “putting the Prayer Book into practice.” The next thing I owe to the Oxford Movement is something very different. It is my love of poetry. The poem before the verses for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany in The Christian Year beginning, “I marked a rainbow in the rain”, is the first I remember learning. But most of all the Oxford Movement has always stood for me for the connection between morality and religion and for a certain asceticism in religion.
What it preached it showed forth in Pusey and Keble and Hurrell Froude, in Isaac Williams and Charles Marriott and in that martyr of the second generation of the movement A.H. Mackonochie. It is, I suppose, a natural infirmity of human nature not to be able to understand how anyone can fail to share the hero worship of one’s youthful days.”
An extract from his book Old Age and the Life to Come1 says: “Some of my friends will complain that I repeat things which I have said before. That is inevitable. The Catholic Faith does not consist of a number of separate and unrelated statements. It is a closely articulated system and philosophy of life.”
1 PG: Old Age & the Life to Come, (A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., London, 1950), p7.
FOREWORD
by the Bishop of Manchester
Peter Green is a legend in the Diocese of Manchester, and a figure held up as an example, whose writing featured in my confirmation preparation long ago.
His writings emphasise the need for the Anglo-Catholic faith and devotion to go hand in hand with evangelism, resulting in personal commitment to Our Lord.
I believe that despite the change in social conditions Green’s advice about the importance of the parish ministry is relevant today, as is his warning of the danger of secularisation to both Church and Nation. I commend this book as a spiritual resource.
+Nigel Manchester
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the Anglo-Catholic History Society for agreeing to publish this book. It is not intended to be a rerun of H.E. Sheen’s biography, Canon Peter Green, published in 1965. I have attempted to discover what Peter Green thought and taught and the depth of his spirituality in his thirty eight books published over 60 years, indicating his integrated system of faith, life and service. The hope is that the reader will perceive the wholeness of his life and be able to find something of value to re-enforce their own spirituality and so be infected, to use a Peter Green expression, with his enthusiasm.
I wish to place on record my thanks to those who have encouraged me to undertake this investigation, especially those in whom Peter Green’s memory is still bright 50 years after his death on 17th November 1961. They are the ones who have delved into their personal archives to provide photos of him which they treasure.
My thanks go to Alison Siddall for introducing me to Green’s Artifex articles in the Manchester Guardian and making them available to me.
I acknowledge the advice I have received from Canon Andrew Shanks, Canon John Elford, Tom West, Dr George Brooke, and lately from Michael Yelton. Above all, I am forever grateful to Sally, my wife, as my chief support in this project as in all the others we have under-taken together over our long married life.
+Frank Sargeant
CONTENTS
| 1871-1919 | |
| CHAPTER ONE | EARLY YEARS AND INFLUENCES |
| CHAPTER TWO | WORK WITH LADS AND MEN |
| CHAPTER THREE | WORLD WAR ONE AND AFTERMATH |
| 1920-1930 | |
| CHAPTER FOUR | ALL ROUND PRIEST |
| CHAPTER FIVE | EVANGELIST |
| CHAPTER SIX | THEOLOGIAN |
| CHAPTER SEVEN | APPLIED THEOLOGY |
| CHAPTER EIGHT | DEVOTION |
| 1930-1939 | |
| CHAPTER NINE | ETHICS |
| CHAPTER TEN | PUBLICATIONS |
| CHAPTER ELEVEN | ART AND AESTHETICS |
| 1939-1951 | |
| CHAPTER
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