Charles Fox (1 October 1878 – 28 October 1977) was the longest-serving expatriate member serving in the Solomon Islands. Because the anniversary of his death falls on the Feast Day of the Apostles, Saints Simon and Jude, in the Anglican Church of Melanesia, the commemoration of Charles Fox is transferred to today, 29 October (see that Church’s Calendar here).
You can read more about Charles Fox here and here. Some of his writings are here.
Without any explanation, however, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia commemorates Charles Fox on 6 September. Members of the Prayer Book Commission, whom I contacted, could not recollect why that date was chosen. I put out requests for suggestions on this site’s Facebook and Twitter profiles. This Church’s doctrine of the time was only one celebration per Calendar day – that would explain why October 28 wasn’t chosen. But the only reason anyone could come up with for 6 September was its connection with the next day, 7 September, which in this Church is the commemoration of “The Saints and Martyrs of the Pacific”.
This “Saints and Martyrs” commemoration is one of six in this Church’s Calendar. All of these, except “The Saints and Martyrs of the Pacific, 7 September”, were in the Revised Calendar of 1972. The Pacific commemoration was also missing in The New Zealand Calendar of 1980. So the Pacific commemoration was a Johnny-come-lately addition for the 1989 A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (NZPBHKMA). The Anglican Church in Wales also has regional commemorations, including for Saints, Martyrs and Missionaries of Australasia & the Pacific, but on September 20. There seems nothing sacrosanct about 7 September for NZPBHKMA’s Pacific commemoration – so moving Charles Fox to 6 September makes little to no sense.
In recent days, we have also discussed on this site the inexplicable moving of the Martyr William Tyndale, who died on 6 October 1536 (and so is universally celebrated on that date’s anniversary) to the commemoration in NZPBHKMA on 7 October. The 6th of October is blank, now only occupied by a commemoration of “The Saints and Martyrs of Asia”, a commemoration that the Church in Wales is happy to have on December 2, so there seems nothing about 6 October that would make Asia trump Tyndale!
These regional commemorations can give the impression that there is an attempt to compensate for a Eurocentric Church Calendar, just as tomorrow’s celebration of “Holy Women of the New Testament” somehow brings better gender balance to it. But I posit that the celebration of catholicity in sanctity, what ANZPBHKMA calls “the victory of Christ in the lives of particular individuals” (The Calendar, page 8) needs to be precisely that – commemorating the lives of particular individuals, not simply generic “Saints and Martys of X” or “Holy Women of Y”.
Some years back, General Synod Te Hinota Whanui (GSTHW) passed a motion of mine to review our Calendar – that review was never carried out. With the publication last year of a book with the same title, A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa, but which has not gone through the processes required of GSTHW by our Church’s Constitution, GSTHW appears to have lost control and even interest in our Church’s liturgical life. Hence, I am not, in this post, yet again calling for a GSTHW review of our Calendar (even knowing that others also, certainly, are unhappy with what we now have – not least those with a more indigenous, Southern Hemisphere, Pacific focus).
But I for one will today, 29 October, commemorate a hero of the Church, Charles Fox – celebrating “the victory of Christ” in the life of this particular individual, and doing this in union with the Anglican Church of Melanesia where he served, and as close as possible to the anniversary of his death and his entering into the joy of his master.
