Dictionary

Words on this page

Bishop

‘Bishop’ comes from the Greek word for ‘overseer’. So a bishop is a senior Christian minister authorised to have oversight for God’s people. As well as duties given to deacons and priests, bishops confirm and ordain.

Holy Communion

At Holy Communion blessed bread and wine is shared, by which we receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The congregation gives thanks for Jesus’ life, his death and resurrection and his continuing presence. See also Eucharist.

Prayer

Prayer sustains our human relationship with God and may involve words (formal or informal) or be silent. Prayer can involve adoration (‘I love you’), confession (‘sorry’), thanksgiving and supplication (‘please’).

Home Newsfeed Vestry cupboard hid "precious" Welsh Bible

Vestry cupboard hid "precious" Welsh Bible

St Davids news Posted: 23 November 2023

A Bible printed in 1620, one of the first to be produced in Welsh, has been discovered by chance in a vestry cupboard in St Martin and St Enfail’s Church in Merthyr, near Carmarthen.

Mari James, Library Development Officer at St Davids Cathedral describes the Bible as "quite a treasure" and "a precious part of Wales’ history of Christian worship".

Archdeacon, now Bishop-elect, Dorrien Davies, personally delivered the Bible to the Cathedral Library for expert examination after former Merthyr churchwarden Huw Evans found it forgotten and unrecognised among candles, communion wine and linen in the back of the cupboard.

Copies of the Bible, known as the Bishop Parry version, were distributed to all churches in Wales to comply with Queen Elizabeth I’s instruction that everyone should be able to read the Scriptures in their own language. This was the main Reformation project in Wales, intended to consolidate Protestantism.

The volume was based on the 1588 translation by Bishop William Morgan.. The Old Testament was translated directly from the original Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. Some of the work was carried out in St Davids.

These developments led to an upsurge in literacy and education, pioneered in Wales by social and religious reformer John Vaughan of Derllys in Merthyr. Another link with John Vaughan and his celebrated daughter Madam Bevan is a Welsh Book of Common Prayer dating from 1710 in the reign of Queen Anne and found languishing in the same vestry cupboard.