coventry cathedral education & reconciliation team
Coventry
Shortly after, the words ‘Father Forgive’ – deliberately neutral in content –
were inscribed on the wall of the ruined chancel, and Provost Dick Howard made a
commitment to not seek revenge, but to strive for forgiveness and reconciliation
with those responsible. During the BBC radio broadcast from the Cathedral ruins
on Christmas Day 1940 he declared that when the war was over we should work with
those who had been enemies ‘to build a kinder, more Christ Child-like world.’
The Cross of Nails quickly became a potent sign of friendship and hope in the
post-war years, especially in new relationships with Germany and the developing
links between Coventry and the cities of Kiel, Dresden and Berlin. Learn more
here Coventry Cathedral is thus one of the world’s oldest religious-based
centres for reconciliation, and its work in recent decades has involved it in
some of the world’s most difficult and long-standing areas of conflict. Today
the medieval ruins continue to remind us of our human capacity both to destroy
and to reach out to our enemies in friendship and reconciliation.
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