Easter

The glory days of Central Park

30 April 2022 9:00 am

I celebrate two Easters every year, the Catholic one and the Orthodox one, which means I get very drunk on…

How do we celebrate Easter in the shadow of war?

16 April 2022 9:00 am

This week has been Passiontide, which means lots of wonderful plainsong in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral as my predecessors…

Easter traditions from around the world

15 April 2022 4:03 pm

You know where you are with Christmas. Trees, carols, nativity plays, holly and ivy, presents, mince pies, crackers, Dickens, It’s…

I’ve swapped booze for Pot Noodles

3 April 2021 9:00 am

Along with many other people, I gave up drinking for the month of January and then resumed with gusto on…

The joy and suffering of writing a book

3 April 2021 9:00 am

Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…

Which football teams are the biggest losers?

3 April 2021 9:00 am

Mounting losses The England football team beat San Marino 5-0, taking to 56 the number of competitive games that the…

I’m drinking half as much as usual – with no ill-effects

18 April 2020 9:00 am

I cannot remember a prettier Easter, or a more frustrating one. This was no time to be in town. But…

Letters: The ban on public worship has enabled more of us to experience spiritual riches

18 April 2020 9:00 am

Divine works Sir: Luke Coppen writes that livestreamed services ‘lack the vital communal dimension of worship’ and ‘are, at times,…

The best recordings of my favourite Passion

11 April 2020 9:00 am

In the autumn of 1632, a man called Kaspar Schisler returned home to the small Bavarian town of Oberammergau. He…

Letters: Our churches bring comfort – they must reopen

11 April 2020 9:00 am

Is ‘the Science’ scientific? Sir: I hope that those in the highest places will have read and will act upon…

Much of it is pointless, but that only adds to its charm: Fortnum & Mason hampers reviewed

11 April 2020 9:00 am

Stop the clocks: Fortnum & Mason is still delivering hampers. I am not surprised, because this shop — or rather…

My friend’s death taught me what Easter really means

20 April 2019 9:00 am

The bravest thing I’ve ever seen was 93-year-old Albert’s decision to die and the days after in which he stuck…

Northern soul: Whitby Abbey was built on the site where the date of Easter was decided

Whitby Abbey is at the heart of Britain’s spiritual and literary history

20 April 2019 9:00 am

The 199 steps up to the ruins of Whitby Abbey are a pilgrimage; they always have been. And any good…

Shouldering a hoe, Christ appears to Mary Magdalene in Fra Angelico’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ (c.1438–50)

The loveliest episode of Holy Week – Christ rises from the potting shed

31 March 2018 9:00 am

In Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ (1653) Christ stands with his heel on a spade. He appears, in his rough…

How Cameron and Osborne lost so much of their party

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Why have David Cameron and George Osborne overreached? Why are so many in their own party no longer disposed to…

A.N. Wilson’s diary: Why the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Ryanair are giving us a spring break

23 January 2016 9:00 am

Quarrelling about the date of Easter has been a Christian pastime for centuries. The chief bone of contention is whether…

Why wasn’t there more about the other faiths over Easter on the BBC?

11 April 2015 9:00 am

There was no shortage of Easter music and talks across the BBC networks with a sunrise service on Radio 4…

Detail from the great and strange Altar of the Holy Blood by Tilman Riemenschneider at the Jakobskirche, Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Is this the greatest sculpted version of the Easter story? It's certainly the strangest

4 April 2015 9:00 am

In April 1501, about the time Michelangelo was returning from Rome to Florence to compete for the commission to carve…