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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
Tuesday 1 September – end of October
Losing Identity explores the silent grief and resilience of women fleeing Ethiopia and Eritrea across the Mediterranean Sea in unsafe, overcrowded boats.
The Sunday Forum is an open online group, that runs parallel to the coffee after the service, from 12.30pm to 1pm on a Sunday, open to all.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
We aim to be a place where you can belong. We have a unique history, and the beauty of our building is widely known. Our community commits to faith in action: social and environmental justice; creativity. and the arts
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs £5,000 each day to keep the doors of St James’s open to all who already need us.
A reimagined St James’s realised. A redesigned garden, courtyard and new building capacity—all fully accessible— will provide beautiful spaces for all as well as improving our environmental performance.
Whether shooting a blockbuster TV series or creating a unique corporate event, every hire at St James’s helps our works within the community.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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In the third part of his series on sanctuary, Brian Curnew explores its meaning with reference to place, worship and Christian life.
Think of sanctuary, and what comes first to mind? Here I’m going to look more at that word sanctuary, and where it points us as Christians.
A bit of history. Centuries ago there were in this country particular ‘places of sanctuary’. If you go to Beverley in East Yorkshire, with its great Minister Church, you can see, placed now near the altar, the ‘frith stool’ (‘frith’ from the Old English for peace, security, freedom) for people seeking refuge. That might be safety from enemies or the arm of the law. Around it, and the Minster, was a protected area, quite extensive, still marked by rather worn stone posts. This was one example of a number of holy places, Durham Cathedral was another, well recognised, defended in law, and not to be violated.
So, refuge, safety, protection. Words we may use to describe places, but not just. We use them too with wider reference. They express needs which I think all of us can recognise, on our own behalf and that of others. The same is true of ‘sanctuary’.
But let’s stay for now with this sense of place, because it is where it begins.
‘Sanctuary’ in my dictionary is firstly ‘a holy place’. It is derived from the Latin word ‘sanctus’, which many people will also recognise. ‘’The sanctuary’ came to describe, even within a church, what might be seen as the most sacred space, where the altar is, a holy of holies.
Which takes us to very heart of our main service at St James’s, the Holy Communion, in the Prayer over the Bread and Wine before the Communion itself: the words, ’Holy, holy, holy Lord … Hosanna in the highest’. You may recognise these same words in Latin: “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’.
So, ‘sanctuary’ we see is linked to this profound moment, when we come before God, imminently to receive the bread and wine of the Communion.
For people familiar with our worship Sunday by Sunday at St James’s I believe there is yet more for saying.
At that moment in the service, we are invited to gather in a circle round the altar, ‘many layers deep’.
It’s a practical expression of invitation to the Lord’s Table, which any Communion Service is, and of the community which any Communion properly expresses, ‘for we being many are one body, for we all share in the one bread’. This is our experience service by service.
For me, this too speaks of ‘sanctuary’ and not just at this focal point of worship. This is because whenever we as Christians get to speak of sanctuary it refers back to this communion: to our Lord’s invitation, God’s hospitality, and being gathered into a fellowship which because it is of God, should be welcoming, safe, and offer support. So: ‘sanctuary’ as we Christ’s church seek to offer it, and the sense we have of it wherever.
Whenever we as Christians use the word, the proper starting point for it is our sense of God.
Writing now, isn’t it mattering very much that we hold on to this, on behalf of any who are seeking asylum, refugees?
At St James’s we have been seeking over many years to offer, as we are able, this sanctuary to asylum seekers and refugees, by way of our International Community, Support Worker, and International Group volunteers.
But when a word gets into more general use, it gets used in ways that may differ, even ways that belie its true meaning.
There are now in this and other countries those who use the word to mean safety and protection not for, but from, asylum seekers.
This is not the place to expand on this, the how, the why, attendant issues – except with reference to the use of the word ‘Christian’ as claimed validation, using the name of Jesus, and pointing to his cross. I hope that this blog, and the two previous ones, have been showing this for the terrible distortion that it is.
Churches at local and national level are facing, and addressing, this so-called Christian Nationalism. There are people doing this from St James’s.
On Sunday 18th October we at St James’ will receive accreditation as a Church of Sanctuary.
All the more important that we do.
All the more important too that we know why – in simple humanity, and knowing it as ‘rooted and grounded’, as St Paul wrote, in God (Ephesians 3.17).
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***. From. Inderjit Bhogal ‘Hospitality and Sanctuary for All’ , ©CTBI 2026
“Church of Sanctuary is not a campaigning political movement. It is a biblically inspired initiative; it is about being prophetic, challenging hostility with hospitality. This can mean we become political, and that is in keeping with the style of biblical prophets, speaking truth to power with passion and compassion – seeking justice” (‘Hospitality and Sanctuary for All’ p.46).
