I visited two different priests of the Scottish Episcopal Church yesterday in their homes and each had the most extraordinary thurible hanging in their houses. [A thurible is what you use to waft incense around a church]. It turned out that each had been the thurible of the Catholic Apostolic Church, that glorious denomination dedicated to the second coming, prophetic utterances and the highest neo-gothic church buildings and trappings ever conceived. The thuribles in question were from their communities in Dundee and Edinburgh. What a strange coincidence to encounter them both on the same day. They were each huge heavy bowls for the coals and incense topped off with glorious metalwork in the shape of buildings. There cannot have been more than a few in Scotland like this ever, so to see two in one day is very strange. They are each much loved and cared for, which I hope would give comfort to those who had once commissioned them. The Catholic Apostolic Church somehow managed to achieve high gothic without high camp – something that the Oxford Movement did not necessarily always manage to avoid.
Utterly beautiful things. What a commitment to the physicality of worship. Incarnation in the metalworker's art. Heaven on earth.
Thurible Spotting
23/08/2003 By 3 Comments
Re: Thurible Spotting
Just a small correction – Big Aggie came from Glasgow's Catholic Apostolic Church, not Edinburgh. But who has the Edinburgh one?
Re: Thurible Spotting
Thanks for the correction Ruth – I have no idea who has the Edinburgh one. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get them all together for a service? Is the Glasgow CA church building still extant? I don't even know where it was.
There is a rather odd offshoot of the CA Church called the New Apostolic Church which exists in Scotland in Dunfermline, but they do not seem to have taken on the powerful aesthetic of the Catholic Apostolic church. It is wonderful that the two thuribles from Glasgow and Dundee are different – no mass production in those days.
Re: Thurible Spotting
The Catholic Apostolic Church in Glasgow was in McAslan St in Townhead. The building was apparently designed by AWN Pugin but was demolished in 1970. There’s a photograph of the interior in The City that Disappeared by Frank Worsdall