Truro in Coventry - the Community of the Cross of Nails

A little more than a month after St. Michael's Cathedral was leveled in the German bombing raid of November 1940, then-Cathedral Provost Richard Howard conducted a Christmas-day broadcast from the rubble of the cathedral.  He told the listening world that after the war the church should work with former enemies "to build a kinder, more Christ-like world."  From this vision grew partnerships between the cathedral and the German cities of Kiel, Dresden and Berlin which had been similarly devasted by American and British bombers.  One of the central artifacts of these relationships is the Cross of Nails that was made from three medieval nails salvaged from the cathedral's destruction.

The Cross of Nails, Coventry Cathedral
 

The Community of the Cross of Nails is now an international society of more than 150 partners pursuing reconciliation across a wide variety of social and religious divides.  This is the spiritual context into which Truro Anglican enters in the coming week to bear witness to the continuing power of Christ to bring peace into the midst of emnity and division.  Without diminishing disagreements or apologizing for our deepest commitments to biblical truth, we witness that "all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."