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We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
Come and celebrate the hope and light that Christmas brings each winter
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. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
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 us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us
Your donation will help us restore our garden in Piccadilly as part of The Wren Project, making it possible for us to welcome over 300,000 people from all faiths and walks of life seeking tranquillity and inspiration each year.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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Listen to Lucy’s ‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC Radio 4 which was broadcast on Tuesday 15 March 2022, in which she reflects on the nature of leadership and the abuse of power.
BBC Radio 4’s Religion & Spirituality podcast providing reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news.
Act 1 Scene 2: a public place. All powerful Julius Caesar meets a crowd. A fortune teller calls out Beware the Ides of March. Caesar has him brought out. He repeats his warning but is dismissed as a dreamer. On this day – the Ides of March – in 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated.
Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 8: a public place. The charismatic preacher Jesus meets a crowd. A woman pushes through and touches the hem of his robe. The debilitating condition that has kept her isolated and poverty stricken for 12 years is relieved. Jesus has her brought out. She tells him what she has done and he tells her ‘your faith has made you well’.
The political power of Caesar and the divine power of God. Stories told to teach us that these powers are held and shared in fundamentally different ways.
Today urgent practical questions are being asked about international political checks on the power of a state. But there are deeper reflections appropriate today on the exercise and abuse of power itself. Christianity offers a distinction: to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, confronting any leader who – in the exercise of their political power -tries to colonise what in the Scriptures belongs to God: the heart, mind, soul and strength of the people. Such a dictator seeks not just to take political decisions for the society they govern but to hold the power of life and death over people at their most vulnerable: over women in labour in a maternity hospital in Mariupol, for example.
In response to this horror, the Christian conviction is that God suffers. In Christ, divine power found expression in a human life lived undefended but ultimately undefeated.
Yesterday 65 eminent Christian orthodox theologians published a declaration that made exactly this point: no political leader should attempt to accrue to him or herself powers they have no right to exercise. The theologians “rebuke all forms of government that deify the state, and leaders whether known by the title Caesar, Emperor, Tsar or President.” Words can be cheap, giving a falsely reassuring sense that something has been done. But words matter too: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ said Christ when faced with the politician’s challenge. On the Ides of March, it’s as well to listen to the words not only of Scripture but of the playwright …
Act 3 Scene 1: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
