The Holy Grail

All quoted text is from The Grail Church copyright Ó Holy Grail, 1995.٭

“Access to the Grail Church is not by way of the establishment within organised religion. Its symbol ~ the Holy Grail of the Last Supper ~ has never at any time received ecclesiastical sanction from the major institutions. … That the ultimate sign of union with God through the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ has gone unrecognised by the Church establishment since adoption of the Faith by the Roman Empire in the fourth century, making Christianity the state religion of a military dictatorship, is perhaps not without reason. The early Church in the Apostolic Age had a profound sense of the sanctity of human life. … The earliest Church of Christ existed in Britain when the Church in Jerusalem was ‘continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and in breaking bread from house to house (Acts 2: 46).’ To the native Celts the Grail Church became known as the British Church; so as to distinguish it from the Anglo-Saxon English Church. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman Christianity the British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated.”

 “The Church founded by Christ in these Isles … that disappeared without trace for twelve centuries to be restored on the summit of a green hill at Eastertide 1973, is the Grail Church. … The seed of the Holy Grail had nevertheless been sown in the folk memory of those who dwelt in the Sacred Isle of the West. … Mystics speak a truth which imagination alone can grasp and the original Apostolic Church of Britain put an emphasis on such things as imagination and compassion and loving one another. Rome only knew how to conquer and when it reached these shores to establish its succession at Canterbury, it was to the detriment of Christianity. By then the Holy Grail had long since disappeared and the Christian community who traced their authority direct from the risen Christ and whose predecessors had arrived with the sacred vessel, were soon themselves to pass into legend and become the stuff of future dreams and lost innocence of childhood. They are the stray sheep of our imagination which, if found, we rejoice over more than anything. Discovery of the Holy Grail ~ and thereby union with God ~ confers immortality, eternal life in heaven. Yet unless we turn round and become like children we shall not achieve this supreme gift. The Grail Church truly was ~ and shall ever be ~ the Guardian of the Most Precious Blood in which we are saved.”

“William of Malmesbury was the only historian of repute who saw the wattle Church before the fire in 1184. William offers his own description: ‘In it the bodily relics of many saints are preserved, some of whom we shall note in due course; nor is there any space around the shrine which does not contain the ashes of the blessed. Indeed, the tessellated pavement of polished stone, yes, even the sides of the altar, and the very altar itself, both above and below, are piled with the crowded relics. In places also one may note in the pavement on either side stones carefully placed, in alternate triangles and squares, and sealed with lead; beneath which, if I believe some holy secret to be held, I am doing no harm to religion.’ This same wattle Church once held the Ark of the New Covenant: the Holy Grail. That was its holy secret. And the Apostolic Church of the Holy Grail was the ‘stone which the builders rejected’.”

The stone which the builders rejected,

this became the chief cornerstone.

~ 1 Peter 2: 7

“The year 597 witnessed the beginning of the end of the autonomy of the Apostolic Church of the Holy Grail in Britain. … The end was in sight when representatives of both the Roman and British Church met in 664 at Whitby to discuss the future of the indigenous people. … Lindisfarne and Northumbria surrendered, but by no means did all the Christians in Britain submit to the hierarchy connected with Rome. … By the beginning of the eighth century all trace of the Grail Church had disappeared. The Apostolic Church of Britain with its divine authority and faithful reflection of scriptural doctrine and piety died as the ambitions of Gregory and his successors were realised. The legacy of the Church founded by Christ Himself and lovingly restored by Joseph and his companions was now lost and would remain so for the next twelve centuries.”

“Our Lord knew that the Sanhedrin and its following would reject Him, so it had to be to others ~ the lost sheep ~ that the new covenant would pass. … Guardianship of the Holy Grail had been given to Joseph of Arimathea. … Joseph bade farewell to Philip and the faithful … and set off with his company of twelve for the Sacred Isle of the West.”

Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of

God will be taken away from you, and be

given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

~ Matthew 21: 43

“In 597 St Augustine of Canterbury wrote to Pope Gregory: ‘In the Western confines of Britain there is a certain royal island of large extent, surrounded by water, abounding in all beauties of nature and necessaries of life. In it the first Neophites of Catholic Law, God hath beforehand acquainted them, found a Church constructed by no human art, but divinely constructed by the hands of Christ Himself, for the salvation of His people. The Almighty has made it manifest by many miracles and mysterious visitations that He continues to watch over it as sacred to Himself.’ … The new covenant, superseding the old covenant of the Jews, was inaugurated by Our Lord in the words which referred to the chalice that became known as the Holy Grail. The Passover Supper ended with His injunction … which Christians have ever since observed as the Last Supper when the Lamb of God replaced the paschal lamb.”

Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant …

~ Matthew 26: 27, 28

“The true Sangreal is the cup sealed by the Holy Blood of the Saviour which was entrusted along with its sacred mysteries to Joseph of Arimathea, who, clothed with the virtues of the risen Christ and the Holy Grail, was sustained spiritually and physically. The Holy Grail became a sign of saving grace and wonder to that company which he was elected to take westward. The cup contained the Saviour’s Blood and unlimited powers of healing were attributed to it, but it was also an outward symbol of unity with God as well as an inward means of transmitting a direct apprehension of God. While the established Church became absorbed into the pagan pantheon of the Roman Empire, the Grail Church and its episcopacy with a super-apostolic succession and extra-valid form of consecrating Eucharistic elements, took root in Celtic Britain.” 

“By preserving the Body of his Master after the Crucifixion, Joseph became an instrument of the Resurrection. On Ascension Day the arch-natural Body was removed from the world, but there remained the Holy Grail into which the Precious Blood of the natural Body had been received by Joseph. Later chroniclers would employ the word Sangreal within which lies the words Saint Gréal (Holy Grail) and Sang Real (Royal Blood). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus was of royal blood.”

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Arthuriana

"He passes to be King among the dead,

And after healing of his grievous wound

He comes again; but — if he come no more —

O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,

Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed

On that high day, when, clothed with living light,

They stood before his throne in silence, friends

Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?"



King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table — as a result of the many medieval writers who contributed to the body of work revolving around Arthur, the phrase conjures up images of knights and ladies, tournaments and quests — romantic, courtly tales reflecting the ideals of chivalry. This is the legacy we have inherited from the fascination of medieval writers with the Matter of Britain.

In the Middle Ages the Matter of Britain, as the tales concerning Arthur and his knights were called, was one of the main sources for epic romance in verse. From the early French works of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes in the twelfth century, to the German from Gottfried von Straßburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach in the thirteenth, through numerous re-tellings in every major language of Europe, the legends were revised and expanded for centuries, leaving so much material to inspire generation after generation.

The work that became the authoritative model for Arthurian literature in English, Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, was not completed until 1470 and is largely a compilation of the tales that were most popular in the fifteenth century. But long before Malory, writers were more concerned with providing an even better version or versions than other writers who had preceded them than they were with telling the story of a figure considered by most at the time to be historical. They derived their narrative authority from the fact that Arthur was a King of Britain who  lived in the fifth to sixth century. No contemporary account names him, but there are tantalising references to figures associated with Arthur in the legends. In the diatribe written by St Gildas in the first half of the sixth century, De Excidio Britanniae (Concerning the Ruin of Britain), he mentions the leader of the Britons who fought back the Saxons, Ambrosius Aurelianus, as well as a contemporary leader ruling in Dumnonia, Constantine. In the Arthurian legends, Ambrosius Aurelianus is often portrayed as Arthur's uncle, and Arthur is succeeded by Constantine, son of Cador of Dumnonia. There is also a standing stone from the fifth or sixth century north of Fowey in Cornwall which commemorates "Drustanus, son of Cunomorus" in Latin—Drustanus being the Latin version of Tristan, one of Arthur's knights in many of the medieval legends. Celliwig in Welsh tradtion, Caerleon in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, and finally (and most importantly for the development of the legend) Camelot in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. It is interesting to note that "Camelot" has a distinct etymological resemblance to the former Roman capital of "Camulodunum" (Colchester), but by the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, this area of Britain was largely under Saxon control. Tantalising as the similarity is, whether the name "Camelot" was an attempt by Chrétien to recall the early days of Roman Britain, was based on knowledge now lost, or was coincidence cannot now be determined.

Who King Arthur was will probably never be established for sure, but his legend in all its manifestations has taken on a life of its own. Upon opening King Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury was found the internally rhymed hexameter Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque futurus —

"Here lies Arthur, king once, and king to be."