ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
On faith and raising funds London's cathedral, in the capital's financial district, puts on a well-managed show, writes Frederick Studemann in part two of our series
Lucy Winkett breaks out into a bemused chuckle when asked how Christmas changes her work. While, as a canon at London's St Paul's Cathedral, the next few days are among the big “fixed points” in her calendar, it is nevertheless business as usual. “It's what we do,” she says, speaking in the empty choir stalls near the high altar. Christmas sees Sir Christopher Wren's baroque masterpiece filled with thousands of worshippers as it rarely is during the rest of the year. But if the festive season is nothing extraordinary to the people who work there, it nevertheless requires a remarkable level of strategic management.
St Paul's is sited on the edge of the City, London's financial district. Earlier this month, the scaffolding that had long covered its main ceremonial entrance was removed, revealing the brilliant white facade that it would have had when it was first unveiled to the city's fathers nearly 300 years ago.
Some 12,300 people are expected to attend the five main Christmas services at St Paul's from family carols a week beforehand to the two services apiece on Christmas eve and Christmas day. A further 12,500 attend separate special seasonal events, such as performances of the Messiah, a concert celebrating links with the Swedish church and a charity fund-raising concert. “It's just fantastic a big building full of people,” says Canon Winkett, a 36-year-old who is seen as one of the high flyers among the church's growing band of women priests.
The marked increase in church-goers over Christmas compares with a normal weekly attendance of around 3,500 to 4,000 people, of whom 2,000 attend services and 1,500 to 2,000 come for for special events. It is a pattern repeated across the Church of England. An estimated 2.6m people attend services on Christmas eve or Christmas day. On an average Sunday, just over 1m people attend church. Over an average week, the number rises slightly to 1.2m.
In organisational terms, Christmas entails many long-established routines. “There is a lot of shared knowledge which doesn't need to be organised.” Still, four or five months beforehand, the Dean and Chapter, the cathedral's governing body, gather to plan for the season. “It is up to us to think it through and set the boundaries within which the organisation does something different,” says Canon Winkett, one of the body's four “residentiary”, or professional, canons.
Actually making it happen is the job of the minor canons, who sit at the next level down from the Dean and Chapter. Traditionally, the minor canons there are currently three ran the cathedral, and they still lead all the daily services. The big services of Christmas and Easter are alternately handled by the dean, the Very Reverend John Moses, and the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres. The bishop has his seat his cathedra at St Paul's, but he is not actively involved in the day-to-day life of the cathedral.
Key in overseeing the smooth running of services are the virgers. (St Paul's is unusual in having virgers, not vergers.) There are six full-time virgers among the lay members of the cathedral's 200 employees and they organise the processions, open the Bible at the right place for readings and even trim the candles.
For St Paul's, Christmas does not mean just an increase in those attending services. Tourist numbers also jump, resulting in an increase in revenue through the turnstiles a ￡8 ($15) entrance fee is charged outside service hours and in the cathedral's two shops.
This year has seen a pick-up in visitor numbers after a disappointing 2003 when the ongoing restoration work, together with the partial closure of the underground train line serving St Paul's and the drop in foreign tourist numbers to London in the run-up to the Iraq war, resulted in a 11 per cent drop in visitors to 700,000. The consequence, in business terms, was a decline in revenue from tourism and trading of ￡620,000 to ￡4.53m.
Despite this setback, St Paul's remains one of England's biggest tourist draws. A recent report by English Heritage ranked it third, after York and Canterbury, among the most-visited English cathedrals. Such figures highlight the church's wider role in maintaining large parts of England's heritage. Some 45 per cent of the country's Grade I listed or premium heritage-class buildings are maintained by the Church of England. In total, the government lists some 13,000 of the church's 16,000 buildings as being of special historic or architectural interest.
This creates difficulties. “The big problem is the huge amount of cost and effort demanded by the buildings and fabric, when a lot of the need is about dealing with people,” says one senior church official. At St Paul's, repairs and restoration costs (￡5.6m) and fabric maintenance costs (￡1.9m) accounted for the bulk of the cathedral's 2003 outgoings of ￡13.9m. To help it on these and other matters, the cathedral has three lay canons who sit on the governing body: Michelle Brown, a manuscript expert who has worked at the British Library; Peter Chapman, who works for the Financial Services Authority, the financial watchdog; and Claire Foster, formerly an adviser on ethical matters to the Church of England. Their appointments were a product of the Cathedrals Measure, a report published five years ago which called for improvements in ecclesiastical governance. The result, says Canon Winkett, has been positive. “Our decisions are much better informed because of our lay colleagues.”
The report contributed to a series of reforms introduced in the Church of England over the last decade aimed at improving governance. Others included the establishment of the Archbishops Council, the closest thing the church has to an executive body, to address strategic challenges.
While the governance reforms represent innovation in the upper echelons of the cathedrals, they draw on a tradition involving the laity in the running of the church. As such, they are a demonstration of the church's ability to combine tradition with innovation. This is something also demonstrated by Canon Winkett who, as she prepares for the influx of people to St Paul's this weekend, is herself a personification of the church's ability to change.
圣保罗大教堂的商业圣经
当被问及圣诞节是如何改变她的工作时，露西?温凯特(Lucy Winkett)不解地笑了笑。作为伦敦圣保罗大教堂的一名教士，接下来几天将是她日程表上的重要“定点”，但尽管如此，业务一切照常。“我们平时就这么做，”她说。此刻她正坐在高高的圣坛旁空无一人的唱诗席上。圣诞节期间，这座由魏伦爵士(Sir Christopher Wren)设计的巴洛克杰作将被数千名信徒挤满，而在一年的其他日子里，很少会看到这样的景象。不过，即便对在这里工作的人来说，圣诞节并无特殊之处，但过好这个节日还是需要一种非凡的战略管理水平。
圣保罗大教堂位于伦敦金融城边缘。本月早些时候，长期掩盖其礼仪大门的脚手架被拆除，该建筑熠熠生辉的白色正面显露出来。近300年前，当这座建筑初次展现在金融城祖辈面前时，它的正面本就会是这样。
圣诞弥撒
预计将有约1.23万人前往圣保罗大教堂，参加5场大型圣诞节礼拜，其中有节前一周举行的家庭颂歌会，还有分别在圣诞夜和圣诞日举行的两场宗教仪式。另有1.25万人参加单独举行的圣诞特别活动，如弥撒表演、一场纪念与瑞典教会建交的音乐会，还有一场慈善募捐音乐会。“这么大的建筑里全是人，真是棒极了，”36岁的温凯特教士说。圣保罗大教堂女教士的队伍正在壮大，温凯特则被认为是这支队伍中前途远大的教士之一。
圣诞节期间上教堂的人显著增加，相比之下，平时每周有约3500至4000人上教堂，其中2000人是来做礼拜的，1500至2000人为了其它活动前来。这与英格兰教会（Church of England）的整体模式相符。估计有260万人将参加圣诞夜和圣诞日的宗教仪式。而在平时的周日，上教堂的人数略超过100万，平时一周的人数达120万。
筹划
从机构角度来看，在圣诞节必须履行许多长期确定的惯例。“有许多大家都知道的知识，这些知识不必进行整理安排。”尽管如此，大教堂的管理机构“主教及教会”还是提早4、5个月碰头，为圣诞节进行筹划。“由我们来全面考虑，并设定界限范围，让机构在此范围内做些富有新意的事，”温凯特教士说。她是圣保罗大教堂4名驻堂教士（专职教士 ）之一。
具体开展工作是低级别教士们的职责。他们的级别在主教及教会之下。传统上，低级教士（目前有三名）管理大教堂，他们仍然主持所有的日常宗教仪式。圣诞节和复活节的大型宗教仪式现由约翰?摩西 (John Moses) 教长和伦敦大主教理查德?恰特(Richard Chartres)轮流操办。大主教在圣保罗大教堂占据主教席位，但对大教堂的日常事务参与不多。
教堂司事是监督宗教仪式顺利进行的关键。在大教堂200名雇员的世俗人员中，有6名全职司事。他们组织宗教游行、从合适的地方打开圣经供诵读，甚至还修剪蜡烛。
门票收入
对于圣保罗大教堂来说，圣诞节不光意味着前来做礼拜的人增加，而且游客人数也将跳升，这将导致门票收入和大教堂所设两家商店的收入增加。在礼拜时间以外，大教堂对访客收取8英镑（合15美元）门票，让他们通过十字转门进入教堂。
今年游客人数已经回升。2003年却是令人失望的一年，由于当时教堂正在重修，且通往圣保罗大教堂的地铁线路部分关闭，而伊拉克战争打响也使来伦敦的外国游客人数下降，这些因素共同导致大教堂的游客人数减少11%，至70万名。从商业角度来看，这造成了当年的旅游和贸易收入减少62万英镑，至453万英镑。
教堂与英格兰历史遗产
尽管遭遇这一挫折，圣保罗仍是英国吸引游客最多的景点之一。在最近一份报告中，英格兰历史遗产管理局(English Heritage)将它列为游客最多的第三大教堂，仅次于约克大教堂(York)和坎特伯雷大教堂(Canterbury)。这些数字突出表明，在维护英格兰历史遗产方面，教堂扮演着比较广泛的角色。在该国I级建筑（即最高遗产级）中，约有45%是由英格兰教会维护的。在教会的1.6万座建筑物中，政府总计将约1.3万座列为历史或建筑遗产。
这造成了一些困难。“维护这些大楼和建筑所需的钱财和精力是个大问题，而且许多需求是关于和人打交道的。”教会的一位高级官员表示。在2003年圣保罗大教堂的1390万英镑开支中，修缮与重建费用（560万英镑）以及建筑维护费用（190万英镑）占了很大一部分。为了在这些事和其它事上提供帮助，大教堂有三位在管理委员会任职的世俗教士：迈克尔?布朗(Michelle Brown)，他是一名在大英图书馆工作的手稿专家；彼得?查普曼(Peter Chapman)，他在金融监管机构英国金融服务管理局(Financial Services Authority)就职；还有一位是克莱尔?福斯特(Claire Foster)，曾是英格兰教会道德伦理事务的一位顾问。对他们的任命是五年前发布的一份报告《教堂估测》(Cathedrals Measure)的成果。这份报告呼吁改善教会的管理。温凯特教士说，这么做产生了积极的效果。“多亏有我们的世俗同事，我们做决定所依靠的消息可靠多了。”
教堂改革
过去十年间，《教堂估测》为英格兰教会带来了一系列旨在改善管理的改革。其它改革包括建立大主教理事会(Archbishops Council)，这是教会中最接近执行机构的一个组织，其使命是应对战略挑战。
虽然上述管理改革代表了各教堂上层建筑的革新，但他们还是继承了一个传统，就是在教会运作中把世俗人员包括在内。这样一来，管理改革也是对教会能力的证明，显示它能够把传统与革新结合起来。这点也得到了温凯特教士的证实：在为本周末涌入圣保罗大教堂的人群做准备时，她本人就体现了教会的改革能力。
