I have a small desk calendar on our computer desk which I bought in 2009 when we went with my parents and extended family for a glorious summer holiday to Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland.  I could tell you more about that holiday and some of the interesting places we discovered – perhaps I will come back to the topic another time.  But I still keep this 2010 calendar because I love looking at the pictures each month, and remembering the places we visited together on Orkney (which is a collection of approximately 70 islands gathered around the largest ‘Mainland’). 

January’s photo is of The Italian Chapel on the island of Lamb Holm (https://www.orkney.com/listings/the-italian-chapel ).  This beautiful Roman Catholic chapel was built out of two Nissen huts by Italian prisoners of war in the early 1940s after their Italian priest made a request to the Camp Commander to provide a worship space for the imprisoned servicemen.  They made use of old corned beef tins and used car parts, and had access to concrete, left over from building the sea barriers which was the reason they had been sent to Orkney. 

The outside of the chapel has an Italianate-looking West End entrance but viewed from the side, it looks much like any other Nissen hut.  It is only as we step in through the doorway that we are struck by the sheer beauty and craftsmanship of the inside of the chapel which was decorated so skilfully by an Italian artist, Domenico Chiocchetti, who was a prisoner of war at the time.  He modelled his wall painting of the Madonna and Child behind the altar on a small prayer card which he had carried in his pocket for many years.  When the other prisoners were released towards the end of the war, Chiocchetti remained on the island to finish his artwork on the chapel.  The walls and ceiling are covered in frescoes and pseudo-mosaics, and except for the rather small-scale size and unusual semi-circular shape of the building, you might be forgiven for thinking you had stepped into one of the World Heritage churches of Ravenna in Northern Italy.  Since the 1940s a close bond has grown up between the painter’s home town of Moena in Italy and residents of Orkney.  The Chapel is still used in summer months today, and has formed a focus for reconciliation.

It seems fitting that January’s picture should be something so small and beautiful as this exquisite treasure of a chapel, created in a time of war by prisoners far from home and using whatever recycled rubbish they could gain access to.  It tells us that even in the worst of times, human beings are able to carry their faith in God with them and keep it alive inside their hearts.  Even when the world is caught up in momentous events and is enveloped in danger or destruction, humans have a remarkable ability to produce beauty out of mayhem and find comfort in difficult places. God still speaks to us through times of darkness and inspires us to find him in the most unpromising situations – it might be in a Nissen hut or a sick room, or perhaps as we gather yet again in another Zoom room.  God is always there and waiting to hold our hand.

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 13^th January 2021    sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk