Donald Reeves, radical Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, called a ‘dangerous man’ by Mrs Thatcher

Reeves complained that the Church of England had been delivered by its bishops into the hands of the ‘happy-clappy evangelicals’

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The Reverend Donald Reeves, who has died aged 90, was Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, from 1980 to 1998, and one of the Church of England’s most remarkable priests.
Combining vision and compassion in equal measure, he revived the life of an almost moribund London West End church so that it became a unique centre of eclectic spiritual life. Upwards of 250 people of all ages from all parts of London, and increasingly from many different countries, filled the church for the Sunday morning service, sharing in a radically different approach to worship best described as “dignified informality”.
Other enthusiasts shared in a wide variety of weekday activities, ranging from New Age spirituality to meetings of Lesbian and Gay Christians.
Reeves’s experimentation inevitably provoked derision in some quarters, with the Daily Telegraph’s Peterborough column describing St James’s as “the spiritual headquarters of guitars, ‘body prayer’ and raffia-work from Nicaragua”. Undeterred, he declared the church to be an inclusive community that welcomed and celebrated human diversity, “a space where people of any faith or none can question and discover sacred life through openness, struggle, laughter and prayer”, with a commitment to be in solidarity with poor and marginalised people and to cherish Creation.
All of which found expression, imaginatively and dynamically, in the Wren church on Piccadilly, rebuilt after wartime bombing, though Reeves was careful to retain its traditional approach to “society” weddings and Establishment memorial services. He also exercised a much valued pastoral ministry to the Royal Academy, the Ritz Hotel and other institutions in the neighbourhood. The churchyard accommodated a daily market and a cafe.
A handsome man (Jilly Cooper called him a dishy vicar) with an engaging personality, Reeves had something of the actor in him, and he was sometimes accused of being a publicity seeker, but he was in fact a deeply caring priest, who gave endless time to individuals in trouble and reserved his fiercest public utterances to criticism of the injustices that cause suffering.
An ardent peace campaigner, he relished publicly attacking the policies of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and joined a demonstration in Hyde Park against the Falklands War. In the early 1980s he set up Dunamis, an organisation “for diplomatic dialogue on military and political issues”, inviting Chinese and Soviet officials to meet their Western counterparts, along with representatives of CND, for debates in the church and rectory suppers. Initiatives like this were said to have provoked Mrs Thatcher to call Reeves “a very dangerous man”, which pleased him as “it felt like a natural title.”
Reeves had little patience with academic theology, but a firm commitment to the essentials of the Christian faith and a desperate desire that its values of love, justice and freedom should be more clearly expressed in the life of local, national and international communities.
He believed that the Church had a crucial part to play in the achieving of this, but came to despair of its ability to make the necessary changes in its own life. A brief spell on the General Synod left him deeply depressed, and he complained that during the 1990s the Church of England had been delivered by its bishops into the hands of the “happy-clappy evangelicals”, whose money and numbers were allowed to give them undue power. They were not, he asserted, truly Anglicans, and did untold harm by promoting a “Mickey Mouse religion”.
Donald St John Reeves was born on May 18 1934 in Chichester where his non-churchgoing father Henry owned a garage. As a boy he attended a local Anglo-Catholic church where he later played the organ, but be eventually left because he could not discern any connection between its worship and everyday life. Instead, he attended the cathedral, where he was impressed by the theatricality of the worship and much influenced by its kindly dean, Arthur Duncan Jones.
For much of the time, however, he was away at Sherborne School and on completion of his education there in 1952 did his National Service as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment. He then went to Queens’ College, Cambridge, to read English and this led to an appointment as a British Council lecturer in Beirut.
He was in the Lebanese capital, teaching English and arranging cultural events, from 1957 to 1960, shortly before it became caught up in the broader Middle Eastern conflicts, but he himself endured a period of emotional turmoil. He coped with this by attending the small Anglican church but mainly by going daily to the Roman Catholic Franciscan church where he just at the back in silence. As a result, he felt that “God has searched me out and touched me”.
On his return to England, Reeves became director of studies at Brasted Place, near Westerham in Kent. This college had been set up by the Church of England to prepare ordination candidates who lacked the necessary academic qualifications for entry to universities and theological colleges.
During his time there he decided to seek ordination himself and went to Cuddesdon Theological College, at that time under the principalship of Robert Runcie, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Reeves now became caught up in the reforming movement of the Church in the 1960s and, although Runcie did not identify himself with much of this, he was sensitive to the ideas of the young, adventurous students and gave Reeves every encouragement. A rumbustious Nativity play produced by Reeves upset most of the college and some in the village where it was located.
In 1963 he was ordained in Canterbury Cathedral by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and after two years as a curate in the vigorous parish of All Saints, Maidstone, was chosen by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood of Southwark to be his domestic chaplain.
This took him to the centre of what had become known as “South Bank Religion” where a highly talented band of clergy, including Bishop John Robinson of “Honest to God” fame, were attempting to bring the Church in south London to life through radical experiments in worship, pastoral work and mission.
Stockwood, a celibate homosexual and a maverick among the diocesan bishops, needed the right kind of administrative and personal support offered by attractive young chaplains, and this was provided very effectively by Reeves for the next three years, though at one stage he lost his own faith in God.
In 1969 he was rewarded by appointment as Vicar of St Helier, Morden, one of the largest and most demanding parishes in south London. With a population of over 30,000, mainly in pre-war and post-war housing estates, the Church’s problems in monochrome artisan-class areas were only too apparent and Reeves was sent to initiate a totally new approach and to implement what he had learnt from a lengthy stay at an Urban Mission Training Centre in Chicago, where he had spent a sabbatical in 1968 with Stockwood’s encouragement.
He pursued his work in the south London suburbs for more than a decade, assisted by a large team of gifted curates, several of whom went on to become bishops or deans.
Innovation was the order of the day. An artist friend was commissioned to paint murals on the external walls of the church. (These were removed by his successor.) The worship became varied, with dialogue sermons, dancing and much involvement by laypeople. Those who could not read were encouraged to learn Bible passages by heart so that they could join the Lesson readers.
Collaborative ministry, with the clergy training members of the congregation to accept responsibility for most aspects of parish life, was a priority. The Church Council tackled social and political problems, such as the weakness of the NHS and the threat posed by armaments manufacturers. Local housing associations were also founded.
Dr Una Kroll, a deaconess on the staff, was a leading feminist who stood for Parliament and was an inspiring leader of the movement that led to the ordination of women to the priesthood. She testified to the crucial support provided by Reeves and his lasting influence on her life: “We often fought like cat and dog, something I have never been able to do in such a creative way with any other vicar.”
Young clergymen from other parishes came to be given 50p and sent out on to the streets of South London to fend for themselves for a few days, then return to reflect theologically on what for some had been a terrifying experience.
In 1980 the Bishop of London, Gerald Ellison, was faced with a major problem over the future of St James’s, Piccadilly. The congregation of this once fashionable West End church had fallen to no more than a handful and it was difficult to see how revival could be achieved.
Ellison, a conservative Establishment churchman, had nothing in common with Reeves, but he believed strongly that the Church of England should embrace a wide variety of traditions and ministries. In any event, there was little to lose at the Piccadilly church so, in an inspired move, he persuaded Reeves to take it on and offered his full support of anything he might attempt – “I don’t care what you do, but keep the church open. You have a big job.” Ellison was, it turned out, due to retire quite shortly.
Thus began one of the outstanding ministries in central London in the 20th century, comparable with that of the legendary Dick Sheppard at St Martin-in-the-Fields 60 years earlier. Among Reeves’s predecessors at St James’s were five archbishops, two bishops, three deans, three archdeacons and innumerable canons and prebendaries. He was given neither preferment nor honour during this period, apart from a Lambeth MLitt in 2003, five years after he had retired from St James’s.
His work was in fact by no means finished. No sooner had he retired to Devon than he set up, with his friend and later civil partner Peter Pelz, “Soul of Europe”, a group aiming to encourage Christians, Muslims and others to work together in the reconstruction of war-shattered Bosnia. This was also intended to emphasise the importance of engaging Muslims in European affairs.
Reeves threw himself into this ambitious – some said “crazy” – project with his customary energy and flair, disdainful of the fact that he had been a victim of cancer.
He won the confidence of all the political and religious leaders in Banja Luka, brought them together for periodic consultations, established a trust for the rebuilding in that city of the Ferhadija mosque, destroyed during the war, and founded Ferhadija associations throughout Europe to support the project. Its steering board was chaired by the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the British government provided some finance, and in 2008 Reeves was appointed MBE.
Reeves published a number of books, including For God’s Sake (1988), Making Sense of Religion (1989) and The Memoirs of “A Very Dangerous Man” (2009).
He is survived by Peter Pelz.
The Reverend Donald Reeves, born May 18 1934, died October 31 2024
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