Chris McDonnell, UK
christymac733@gmail.com

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October 3, 2018

A much needed place

I want to comment this week on a place and a person. The place is on the edge of southern Jerusalem , the Tantur Ecumenical Institute, the person is Donald Nicholl.

The vision for such a place came about in the 60s following the Vatican Council where both Anglican and Protestant observers were welcomed in their attendance. Paul VI, successor of the visionary John XXIII, who first called the Council, dreamed of an ecumenical institute to continue their discussions. The following year, in 1964, the Patriarch Athenagoras met with Paul VI on the Mount of Olives and so began an opening between the Western Church and that of the East. Their meeting was to culminate when the two leaders would lift the bans of excommunication that had been in effect since the Great Schism of 1054, an extraordinary event. Jerusalem became the obvious place for an institute to further this new relationship.

The property at Tantur was purchased by the Vatican and leased to the University of Notre Dame in 1967. Due to the conflicts of the time, it was not opened until 1972. It welcomed through its doors scholars from Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox backgrounds.  It became an oasis of learning, prayer and hospitality in a turbulent part of the world, as it broadened its outlook to include both Jews and Muslims.  

My interest in Tantur arose from reading a Journal written by one of its Rectors, a Yorkshireman, Donald Nicholl - The Testing of Hearts. A memorable book indeed that can be dipped into and the flavour of his work experienced again and again. As an academic historian, he wrote many books and articles; I have only read two of them, outside of that specialist scholarship,  his Journal of his time at Tantur and an earlier book, Holiness, without doubt prophetic works of Christian Witness.

A tall man, well over six foot in height, he was by training an historian, who worked in a number of academic departments both in the UK and the US . During the Second World War, he spent time with the army in India and Asia and finally in Hong Kong .

His conversion to Catholicism came from those years and he was finally received into the Church in 1946. His academic home in England came to be Keele University in Staffordshire, taking its name from the nearby village of Keele in North Staffordshire, some twenty miles from my home. It was not his first academic home, having taught at Edinburgh during the late 40s and early 50s and at the University of California Santa Cruz in the mid 70s. It was in the early Eighties that Nicholl accepted Secondment from Keele to become Rector of the Tantur Institute and there he remained for four, at times turbulent, years, from 1981 through to 1985. Published in 1989, his journal, The Testament of Hearts, is his story of that experience.  Nicholl was a layman whose Christian witness inspired many in his lifetime and whose influence still continues through his writings. His voice and encouragement as a layman should be welcome in our present efforts to remove the damage that has been the evident consequence of clericalism in our Church.

He was a person who was at home with diversity, seeking common ground and understanding rather than looking for the edges and tripping points of discord. The Journal is a record of careful walking amongst peoples and views that rubbed together and so often produced sparks. He was where he learnt the balancing act and in so doing, understood the pain of division. This was highlighted in the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist and the restraints placed on individuals when it came to Receiving. He records in his entry for 7^th September 1981 "Sadly, and not for the first time in Christian history, it is precisely the act by which it is hoped to create the perfect community that seems  to have precipitated most division here at Tantur". The sharing of Eucharist remains a painful reminder division within the Christian Church. Those years in Jerusalem , when bitterness between Jew and Arab spilled over into violence born out of deep mistrust, were indeed difficult times.

That Donald Nicholls steered the Tantur Institute along such a hazardous path is to his abiding credit. And today the Institute continues to flourish, its need never greater, its presence all-important in a troubled world.

He died of cancer on the evening of May 3^rd ,1997, at the age of 74. The closing lines in the Journal kept during his final months conclude with these words. "The attraction of goodness is the only way to draw others out of the world of injustice, violence, conflict and unhappiness. Not forcing others, but drawing them gracefully into communion with oneself and all creation".

Donald Nicholl is buried in the churchyard in Keele village.

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