Bright and early last Friday morning, donned in beanies, gloves, wings, leaves and feathers, members of the Rewild the Church movement gathered at Festival Gardens outside St Paul’s Cathedral, coming together to deliver a message of hope to the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury and current Bishop of London Dame Sarah Mullally. 

With Bishop Sarah’s historic nomination to the role of Archbishop announced at the start of the month, we wasted no time in bringing to her attention the urgent need for the Church to honour its duty to protect Creation, delivering our petition calling for the Church to help save nature by rewilding some of the Church Commissioners’ vast landholdings. 

To do this, we brought with us an exquisite paper Ark – bearing the names of the 122,000+ petition signatories – as a reminder of the opportunity presented to the Church to provide a refuge for Creation through the ecological and climate crises we face and facilitate the flourishing of all life on these lands. 

As the sun rose behind St Paul’s, we started the morning’s proceedings off by hearing from Chris Packham, a tireless advocate for British wildlife and avid supporter of the campaign. Chris emphasised why, with the land and resources available to the Church, they have an opportunity that not many of us have: to rewild, protect and restore nature at a scale large enough to have a tangible impact in reversing our current trajectory of ecological decline.  For me, this was a reminder of how land inequality in the UK is so closely linked with both the degradation of nature, as well as our cultural, spiritual and physical separation from the land. 

We then heard from Rev. Helen Burnett, parish priest in the Diocese of Southwark and a member of Christian Climate Action, who share our demand for the Church to rewild 30% of its land by 2030 as part of their ‘Stop Crucifying Creation’ manifesto. Helen pointed to the values of kindness, love and hope that Bishop Sarah centred in her address on becoming the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and called on the new Archbishop to act on these encouraging words:

Our hope this  morning is that  it will be kindness and  love  for  our  ‘other  than human’ kin that will  move Bishop Sarah to  do all  that  she can to steer and shepherd us through these times, to lead the church  with  the urgency of  Noah  building the ark,  and to  act now to  use  church land for  healing, regeneration and restoration.

How amazing would  it  be  if the Church of England, through  pressure  on the Church Commissioners, could  be  the dove that bears the  olive  branch of  hope, setting a  tide change for  other  major  land holders to  wild their land.

After these speeches, we all walked in procession to the front entrance of St Paul’s Cathedral to deliver our wealth of gifts: the ark bearing the name of every petition signatory, a bag of wildflower seeds representing each person’s hope in the Church to revive our natural world, and a scroll containing both the petition and an open letter signed by prominent UK figures such as former Archbishop Rowan Williams, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson.  

However, upon reaching the square at the foot of St Paul’s imposing front steps, we were met by the cathedral’s security team who turned down Chris’ request to deliver the petition and stopped our bright and colourful group from approaching the cathedral any closer. Despite having been in contact with Bishop Sarah’s friendly team, who had assured us a representative would be arranged to accept the petition, ark and seeds on her behalf, the message had unfortunately not made it across to St Pauls. 

Alas, we were determined to get the petition to Bishop Sarah. So, after sharing some snacks and chats with those who had come along, a few of us Wild Cardigans scooted over to Bishop Sarah’s office. Here, a representative of Bishop Sarah met us to accept the petition, open letter and wildflower seeds. The representative, Chereen, was particularly excited about the meadow seeds, which we told her were gathered from plants grown in Kent so that the Archbishop Designate may sow and nurture them in her new seat of ministry within the Canterbury Diocese.  We hope that upon receiving the petition, open letter, and seeds, Bishop Sarah considers their message and heeds the call of the Rewild the Church movement. 

It was so lovely to meet more of you in the Rewild the Church community! Thanks so much to all those who woke up early and battled the Friday morning rush hour to make it along. A big thank you also to the wonderful folks at the People’s Prop Dept for building the incredible Ark, and the Art Factory for creating banners carrying our message that there is, indeed, hope to be found in rewilding. 

Read more about the action and open letter in the Church Times and Premier Christian.