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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
We’re marking Black History Month with a very special concert series, offering a curated journey across genres, from classical and Latin music to spoken word.
Tuesday 27 October 7pm
World renowned choir The Sixteen perform some of the finest choral music of the Portuguese and English Renaissance.
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 this reflection, Brian Curnew explores what it means for St James’s to become a Church of Sanctuary, reflecting on our Christian calling to offer welcome, hospitality and support to refugees and people seeking asylum.
This coming Sunday, 18 October, St James’s will be accredited as a Church of Sanctuary. What does this mean?
The Sanctuary Movement in the UK has grown significantly since 2005, when Inderjit Bhogal, a Methodist minister in Sheffield, responded to issues affecting refugees and people seeking asylum. Working with a colleague, he sought local partners to foster a culture of solidarity, inclusivity and welcome. In 2007, Sheffield became the UK’s first City of Sanctuary.
Since then, hundreds of local councils, schools, universities, libraries, theatres and other organisations have been awarded Sanctuary status. Cathedrals and churches have joined the movement as Churches of Sanctuary, promoted by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
On Sunday, Inderjit Bhogal will be our Visiting Preacher as St James’s joins this movement.
You may be thinking that refugee and asylum support is already well established at St James’s. Those with the longest memories will know that this work goes back many years. We have sought to raise awareness through installations in the church, opportunities to learn about the asylum process, and by listening to the lived experiences of people within our community.
From 2016 until the pandemic, our International Group focused on providing breakfast hospitality and developing the support that grew alongside it. In 2019, this work was strengthened by the appointment of a dedicated Support Worker.
Since the pandemic, our International Community has continued to bring together people seeking asylum and others with lived experience. We invite members of the congregation to take part by supporting individuals and joining the Community. We have developed this work in partnership with both faith-based and secular organisations.
Becoming a Church of Sanctuary affirms this commitment. It means joining a network of which we are already a natural part.
Working with our partners, we seek to affirm the dignity and humanity of every person. But becoming a Church of Sanctuary also offers us an opportunity to reflect on what it is about our Christian faith that inspires us to offer welcome, hospitality and, wherever we can, practical support.
Blogs published over the past few weeks, along with a Sunday meeting, have explored these questions by looking at what the Bible teaches us, what our worship expresses and what our Christian experience affirms.
I want to offer two thoughts.
First, how do we believe Jesus sees us, both individually and collectively? St Paul writes:
‘In Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’ (Galatians 3.28)
Secondly, consider the word sanctuary itself.
At the heart of our principal service at St James’s, Holy Communion, we sing the words of the Sanctus during the Eucharistic Prayer: ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord … Hosanna in the highest.’ You may recognise these words in Latin: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.
The word sanctuary is connected to this profound moment in our worship, as we come before God and prepare to receive the bread and wine of Communion.
For those familiar with our Sunday worship at St James’s, I believe there is more to say. At this point in the service, we are invited to gather in a circle around the altar, often ‘many layers deep’. This is a practical expression of the invitation to the Lord’s Table and of the community that Communion embodies.
As we are reminded: ‘For we being many are one body, for we all share in the one bread.’
For me, this too speaks of sanctuary, and not only at this focal point of our worship. Whenever we speak of sanctuary as Christians, we are drawn back to this communion: to our Lord’s invitation, to God’s hospitality and to our being gathered into a fellowship that, because it is of God, should be welcoming and safe, and offer support.
Whenever we use the word sanctuary as Christians, our understanding of it must begin with our sense of God.
Now we are joining the Sanctuary Movement. Is this not a fitting moment, when so much is challenging for our sisters and brothers who are refugees or seeking asylum?
St Paul writes elsewhere about us as the body of Christ:
‘When one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.’ (1 Corinthians 12.26)
Amen to that.
