Free Republic

Archaeologists have uncovered a lost 13th century sacristy at Westminster Abbey along with the bones of hundreds of monks from an earlier burial ground. The team from Pre-Construct Archaeology had been doing work on the North Green of the abbey when they came across the Great Sacristy built by Henry III in the 1250s. An integral part of Henry’s Abbey, the sacristy was the only section of the 13th-century reconstruction which had been lost. Originally used to keep the sacred vestments and items prior to Mass, it was later converted into living quarters before being demolished in the 18th century....

At the back of an altar in Westminster Abbey is a looted tablet deemed so holy by Ethiopian Christians that only priests from the country’s Orthodox church are able to look at it. But the abbey has been accused of gross cultural insensitivity for apparently failing to respond when leaders of the church asked to be able to pray beside the artefact. “I was very shocked and surprised,” said Samuel Berhanu, a deacon in the Ethiopian church in London, who contacted Westminster Abbey last year asking for permission for Ethiopian Orthodox church leaders “to organise a viewing and prayer session”....