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Home > A.H. Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement > The Barnet Tithe Barn Church and the ministry of Archbishop John S.M. Ward

The Barnet Tithe Barn Church and the ministry of Archbishop John Sebastian Marlow Ward
+John S.M. Ward +Ward inspects an exhibition of carriages in the Folk Park, Barnet
The former Tithe Barn Church, Barnet, today a private residence Interior of the Tithe Barn Church

New Barnet's Tithe Barn Church, pictured above, dates from the thirteenth-century. Its Old Catholic history starts with the pioneering Archbishop John Sebastian Marlow Ward (1885-1949), Archbishop of Olivet and Primate of the Orthodox Catholic Church in England. ++Ward was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and taught in England and Burma. His father was an Anglican clergyman. In 1929, in response to divine visions experienced both by himself and his wife, a deaconess, ++Ward formed a monastic community of men and women that was philosophically influenced by Freemasonry, Gnosticism and other esoteric Eastern and Western teachings, called the Confraternity of the Kingdom of Christ. They were guided by the Holy Spirit to find the historic tithe barn in Birchington, Kent, and at their expense removed and rebuilt it in New Barnet, where it was renamed as the Abbey of Christ the King.

++Ward was consecrated by ++Sibley in 1935, and again (as Mar John) by Mar Georgius in 1945, when his church was received into full communion with the Catholicate of the West. Mar Georgius conducted a number of consecrations at the Abbey. ++Ward also numbered among his friends Gerald Gardner, founder of the Wiccan movement, whom he consecrated.

The Confraternity of the Kingdom of Christ worshipped in preparation for the Second Coming, which they believed was imminent, taught and preserved Britain's heritage. In this last mission, a series of prehistoric and medieval dwellings was rebuilt and reconstructed in the church grounds, and the church itself became a repository for a collection of antiquities that was to run to 90,000 items. Thousands of people visited the community and its living folk museum, the Folk Park.

The Folk Park closed at the outbreak of war in 1940. ++Ward was then involved in a court case in 1945 in which he was bizarrely found to have acted illegally in "depriving a father of the services" of his sixteen-year-old daughter who was at that time a member of the community, and at the suit's conclusion the Archbishop determined to leave England behind. The young woman in question had desired no contact with her father, who had sexually abused her, and clandestinely remained with the community after the case had been decided, despite the judge's order that she should leave them. ++Ward and his community emigrated firstly to a property generously donated by Gerald Gardner in Cyprus, where he died a few years later. The collection was dispersed, with many items moving with the community to their eventual home in Australia. The remnant of ++Ward's community's holdings now forms the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology. Mar Georgius used the Abbey for worship in the years following the community's departure. The Abbey of Christ the King has now been converted to a private residence and the Folk Park is no more.

A fuller account of ++Ward's life by his son, Bishop John Cuffe, can be found here. Bishop John has also begun a website devoted to his father's mystic teachings which can be found here.

Concerning the literary and spiritual work of his father, Bishop Cuffe writes to Bishop John Kersey, Director of the A.H. Mathew Center, as follows,

"Broadly speaking the writings of J.S.M. Ward fall into several categories, of which some, such as his masonic,  historical and fictional works, might be of only limited interest. For the rest, there are several published books on spiritual subjects, but there are also a number of works that were not widely circulated.
 
Of the former, his two psychic books, "Gone West", and "A Subaltern in Spiritland", (published in 1917) are readily available on the internet, but as they record what is merely an early stage of Ward's own journey, they should not be regarded as presenting his final views on any subject. At that time, he himself was only just beginning his journey of spiritual discovery, and he later modified some of the views and conclusions propounded in these books.
 
Two books written about 1930, are more representative, and may well be of interest to you.  These are "Life's Problems", basically a series of six lectures about life after death, reincarnation, the Laws of God and the reasons for our existence, and "The Psychic Powers of Christ" a demonstration of the links between the psychic miracles of the Gospels and the psychic experiences of modern researchers and eastern mystics.
 
Then there are the accounts of some of Ward's mystical experiences that date from the early 1930's and are  loosely called the Apocalypses of Brother Seraphion (his mystical name) These include both true apocalypses and some of his experiences on higher Planes, but they have not been widely published because they would not be understood by everyone. They contain several prophetic elements some of which have now been fulfilled but they also demonstrate how he was led from the basically Anglican theology of his ancestors to a system of beliefs that was more compatible with the original teachings of the Early Apostolic Church.
 
His last major work was never completed. From quite early in his career, Ward had realised that the early parts of Genesis were not a literal history, as was then still a common belief in the Anglican Church. Then he began to study Genesis in its historical context, and in particular sought to analyse the true meanings of the early chapters using the actual interpretations of the Hebrew names contained therein. Based upon this concept he started a book entitled "Genesis the Accused"  but this proved to be a major enterprise, and he had really only reached the fifth chapter when he died. This work remained uncompleted until I felt competent to assay the task in 1999, and after another five years, the completed analysis of the original meanings of the Hebrew Chaldean and Egyptian names in Genesis book was finally published as "The Lost Wisdom of Melchizedek".
 
...I recognise that there are at least some of the Eternal Truths in all faiths, and also consider that by encouraging people to seek ever more widely many more will be led to assay the mystic path and so be drawn closer to the Ultimate Goal of all Mankind."