REMARKABLE CHURCH

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1933, Page 4

REMARKABLE CHURCH

EDIFICE OF “FUTURISTS” The appearance of St. Saviour’s Church, the “futurist” church which was opened recently in Eltham, SouthEast London, at a cost of £ll,OOO has aroused a storm of criticism. Feeling has been so strong that the windows were lately broken with stones and the walls disfigured. While the opinions of architects and intellectual visitors have been favourable, the majority of the residents on the Eltham estate refuse to visit the church. The vicar, the Rev. G. H. Isaacson, sees in the building an attempt on the part of the church to meet the needs of the twentieth century, and he has begun with confidence a long fight against local pre- ,

judice. Tho people on the Eltham estate described the church as like a prison, a fort, a factory, and the Rock of Gibraltar. Out of eight persons living within sight of the church who were questioned seven had never been inside. “I’vo never been in,” one woman slated. “Tho look of it put me off. It fair turns you. It’s not my idea of a church at all.” Another resident described the church in these words: “It looks like a factory combined with a kinema. There are flood-light? in the roof,

and the doors, black picked out with red, are like those of a theatre.” When the writer visited the church ho found a structure shaped like two boxes, consisting of dark brickwork, unrelieved except by slit-like windows. It has a forbidding aspect. The walls were smeared with mud and chalk, near the door was a block of derelict machinery. The inside of the church was a contrast. The walls were light and the effect of the windows was to concentrate the attention on the wide altar which is backed by a beautiful reredos. Every Sunday numbers of visitors came from outlying districts, and even from further afield, to see the church. The vicar agrees, however, that the people on the Eltham estate, the-peo-ple for whom it was built, dre slow in attending the service. “While we have had quite good congregations,” he said, “they have been swelled by many visitors, and it is true to say that few people from Eltham have come. Tho church is an expression of the fact that while Christianity is tied down to certain facts, it can yet apply to Twentieth Century life. The strange appearance of the church cuts both ways, for though some may have been frightened away by its grim aspect, yet other people have told me they had come over on purpose to see it, as they wanted to find out what it was. It will be a h arf] fight ! to get the people to come, but I hope ' they will end by finding it attractive ] and that their children, the genera- 1

tion now growing-up, will grow up i tho habit of coming. I have no f< grets that the church is like it i Already some people who were ui certain at first have decided that the like it, and the congregations ; . ai growing. And many people are b ginning to come regularly.”