Guardians of the Holy Grail

“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.”

“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.”

“According to tradition the eighteenth century mansion of Nanteos, just outside Aberystwyth in Wales, became the repository of an olive wood bowl brought by seven monks who had fled from Glastonbury Abbey at the time of the Dissolution. They first went to the Abbey of Strata Florida and thence to Nanteos, bringing with them what was said to be the sacred cup of the Last Supper. In the sixteenth century members of the Powell family became the cup’s guardian. In 1855 Richard Wagner, composer of the Grail opera Parsifal, made a pilgrimage to behold the Nanteos Cup. It was widely believed to possess miraculous healing powers and water poured into it was sent around the world to those afflicted with various diseases and ailments. The fragile cup turned into little more than a sliver as the edges became worn away by people drinking from it in the hope of a cure.”

The Nanteos Cup