The St Wilfrids Pilgrimage 1981

1981 was the year of St Wilfrid celebrating the 13^th centenary of St Wilfrid’s landing at Selsey and bringing Christianity to the South Saxons. The churches of Sussex, in working out plans to celebrate the event together, invited us to organise an ecumenical pilgrimage that year. And so we did, and ever since, our pilgrimages have had an ecumenical nature. We decided that we would visit all the churches and schools in Sussex dedicated to St Wilfrid, which produced a great loop of a route all around Sussex. We began in Brighton (St Wilfrid’s CofE church). Then to Selsey (St Wilfrid’s RC church) via Church Norton where St Winifrid landed, and on to Bosham (where there is the earliest Christian Church in Sussex) and to Chichester (St Wilfrid's CofE church). Then via Pulborough and Cowfold, to St Wilfrid’s Secondary School, Crawley. Then back to St Wilfred’s CofE church, Hayward’s Heath and via St Wilfrid’s RC church, Burgess Hill to Lewes. Then via St Wilfrid’s CofE church, Polegate to Michelham Priory, and via St Wilfrid’s RC church, Hailsham, to St Leonard’s. And finally by St Wilfrid’s church, Winchelsea Beach to Rye, where there was a splendid and most fitting ecumenical conclusion to the whole pilgrimage. Henceforth the pilgrimages were to continue as an ecumenical event, struggling with our differences, the continuing ban on inter-communion, but enjoying and learning the riches of one another’s heritages.