Division over Christchurch's cathedral

TONY WALL

On October 28, Anglican Bishop of Christchurch Victoria Matthews and Dean of Christ Church Cathedral Peter Beck fronted a media conference at the botanical gardens, chosen, the bishop said, because it was a "place of beauty" when there had been so much focus on "everything we've lost".

She then announced that the 130-year-old cathedral would be deconsecrated to allow partial, controlled demolition to make the building safe and to retrieve valuable artefacts.

"This has been a difficult decision for all involved as no one loves the cathedral as much as we do," she said. The cathedral would never look "exactly as it used to", but would be a "mix of old and new".

Waiting in the wings was Beck, who emphasised that the only demolition work would be that required to make the building safe. "Which gives us time to explore further options about what we'll be doing to build a new cathedral – as the bishop says, a mix of old and new."

The pair were singing from the same songsheet that day, but behind the scenes, all was not well.

Sources say relations between boss and employee had become strained, to the point where Beck had taken advice from an employment lawyer.

On Wednesday, he announced he was resigning as dean after nine years in the "best job". He will now run for a vacant seat on the Christchurch City Council, where his publicly expressed views on the cathedral may become more strident.

According to the sources, Beck and Matthews disagreed on the vexed and complex issue of what to do about the severely damaged cathedral, one of New Zealand's most instantly recognised and loved buildings.

They say Matthews appears to favour demolishing the cathedral and building a new church, either on the same site or elsewhere. Beck, it is said, wants to repair the cathedral and restore it to its former glory.

They also disagree over the distribution of fundraising money – the bishop wanting to scatter the money among all of Christchurch's parishes. The bishop is said to have taken full control of all decisions, leaving Beck out in the cold.

Other members of the cathedral chapter, its governing body, have expressed concerns about the bishop's direction, but none were willing to go on the record. "There is an underbelly of disquiet," a source says.

Last week, neither Beck nor Matthews was prepared to depart from the official script. Speaking just hours before he announced his resignation, Beck would not be drawn on his favoured option.

"What I've said is we should build a building that pays homage to our past and builds for the future. I don't quite know what that looks like yet. There is so much we still don't know."

Had he fallen out with the bishop over the issue?

"Of course we have differences of opinion across the board. I don't agree with everybody and not everybody agrees with me. Sure there's robust debate, of course there is ... at the end of the day we make some decisions and do the best we can for the Church and for the city."

Had he taken legal advice?

"That's nobody's business but mine if I choose to do something like that."

On Friday, Haydn Rawstron, a member of the cathedral's Canons Almoner group of high-profile Christchurch figures, fired a rocket into the middle of the dispute with a letter to The Press, accusing the bishop of "flying in the face of public opinion" on the cathedral's future and suggesting she had made Beck's position untenable.

"Technically speaking, how could Canterbury rid itself of a bishop, were that bishop adjudged to make serious errors of judgment in the province's post-earthquake situation?," he wrote.

Matthews was last week on Church business in Korea. Although she has not said publicly that she favours demolition, she has controversially suggested there is "no appetite" from the people of Christchurch for the cathedral to be rebuilt exactly as it was.

She did not reply to an email asking for comment for this article.

Philip Baldwin, the church's media manager, says people who think the bishop wants to demolish the cathedral have got the wrong idea. "They have not listened to what the bishop has said. She has said over and over again that we are going to proceed very slowly, very cautiously with any demolition work.

"The make-safe operation will be as little [demolition] as can be managed in order to make the building safe. For people to read into those comments that there will be more ... demolition is speculation on their part."

LIKE MANY stone heritage buildings in Christchurch, the cathedral was badly damaged by the 6.3 magnitude earthquake on February 22, the tower collapsing, walls twisting, masonry fracturing and stained glass shattering. The rose window in the west wall collapsed in the June aftershocks.

Very little was done about the cathedral until September, when a collaborative working group was set up to help the church property trust make the building safe. The group included the church's engineers, Holmes Consulting Group, the project managers, RCP, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera), the city council's heritage team and the Historic Places Trust. It met for the first time on September 29.

Documents obtained under the Official Information Act by Christchurch Central MP Brendon Burns show that relations between church leaders and council heritage staff quickly broke down. The council team tabled a letter at a meeting on October 18 raising concerns that the process was moving too fast and would not produce the best result.

RCP tried repeatedly to have the letter withdrawn, concerned that it would be discoverable under the information act and made public. RCP's Marcus Read threatened to exclude council staff from future meetings.

According to notes taken by council heritage response team leader Philip Barrett at a meeting on October 27, the church property trust felt "betrayed" by the letter and if it was not withdrawn, Bishop Matthews would write to the council CEO and the mayor.

Council staff, who are no longer invited to meetings to discuss the cathedral, were concerned that the "make-safe" options proposed by Holmes would leave very little of the building. One option involved removing everything except the eastern end beyond the transept.

The council had engaged its own engineers, international earthquake repair experts Miyamoto + Cardno, who tabled a third option – retaining most of the cathedral by installing shock absorbers beneath it and strengthening the walls from the outside with vertical steel rods.

"It can be repaired and strengthened – it can be done," Miyamoto's Michael King told The Press, adding that an international fundraising effort could cover the cost.

This was in stark contrast to Cera's engineers, who recommended the cathedral be declared a dangerous building and be demolished.

In a memo dated October 28, a Cera engineer noted that aftershocks during September and October had caused further damage, particularly to the west wall. Cera engineers did not believe the proposed make-safe options reduced the risk of injury or death to tradesmen working in and around the cathedral, the memo said.

"Cera engineers have considered full demolition versus partial demolition and in our opinion, the extent of stable structure left after demolition of those parts of the building that could collapse ... would be minimal."

The church has since forwarded details of its make-safe plans to Cera, but they have not been made public. The church expects it will cost $4 million to make the cathedral safe, but engineers have advised of a $30m shortfall for long-term options. Cera and the church remain in discussions over the exact nature of the make-safe plan, and any long-term decisions could be six months away.

A council source, who asked not to be named for fear of losing his job, told the Star-Times the Cera engineers' memo recommending demolition "was not based on sufficiently robust information".

He says there is a general misunderstanding in Christchurch that in order to rebuild the cathedral to how it was, it first has to be taken down. That is not the case, he says. The Miyamoto + Cardno proposal involves strengthening walls, which can then form part of the end solution without the need for partial demolition.

The source believes that as much as 80 per cent of the cathedral can be saved, but is convinced the church wants the building demolished, and has done from the start.

He says an archaeologist working in the rubble soon after the February quake had encountered members of the church property trust.

"Within five minutes they were making noises about demolishing the whole thing and building a new building. He is absolutely of the view that that's their agenda – they want it down."

The source says the church's statement that the cathedral will be a mix of "old and new" is meaningless.

"That could be anything from just a new tower and rebuilding the west wall ... to almost full demolition and just keeping the footprint. It's a really vague statement and I guess that's because they don't really know what to do yet, it's all based on money."

The source says church leaders "sat on their a----" doing nothing for six months, "and now it's all happening very quickly", moving, he believes, towards demolition.

"I have the impression that it's being led by the bishop. The underlying feeling is she has an agenda that she almost sees the new cathedral as her legacy for Christchurch.

"I felt that the cathedral [leaders] already had made the decision that they wanted the building down. They were very much of the feeling it was all too hard, and they'd made the decision before they'd actually done sufficient work on possible options.

"They have stated quite clearly that it's their building and it's on their land.

"I just feel it's bigger than that – the cathedral is Christchurch."

WHEN BISHOP Matthews was appointed in 2008, there were mutterings that a foreigner – she is from Canada and was previously Bishop of Edmonton – was appointed over a local.

She has struggled to shake off the outsider tag – as many migrants to Canterbury do – and her critics wonder if, despite her public pronouncements, she truly understands the place the cathedral holds in people's hearts.

One source says parishioners are angry with the bishop "because they feel she hasn't got the sense of place that Christchurch people have, and the love for the cathedral".

Others say Matthews cares for people more than bricks and mortar, and that she would like to see the cathedral insurance money scattered around other parishes and a modern church put up.

"I think the bishop thinks that the cathedral is the congregation, not the building," one source says. "It's a perfectly valid view."

But Anna Crighton, chair of the Canterbury Earthquake Heritage Building Trust, says Matthews needs to respect people's love for the cathedral.

"Christchurch people are very parochial ... and the cathedral is inherent in the whole culture of this city. For any outsider to come in and not take cognisance of that can result in a disastrous decision."

Some sources say Matthews has taken a dictatorial approach to the rebuild.

"She is taking on the whole decision herself. She wants to do it her way, rather than the Christchurch way," one says. "People are hedging around in the background because they're too scared to say anything directly to her."

Sources who have spoken to Beck say he was in a tricky position as an employee. He could not contradict his boss in public.

"He's very unhappy," a source says. "He'd like to see the cathedral back, but professionally he can't go on the record with it. He's putting forward the official message, which he has to do as an employee. The lid is being kept on but there's such a groundswell now, it will go off like a firecracker in the bishop's hand if she's not careful."

Beck, who will continue as dean for another three months, plays down any conflict, saying the cathedral chapter is in agreement over the importance of making the building safe.

"There's a fair amount of heat around and it's not been very helpful. I think people have got themselves in a bit of a tizz about things. Essentially, what we have to do, it's a very dangerous building at the moment, it's seriously damaged, and every aftershock is causing more damage."

What does he think of the Miyamoto + Cardno proposal?

"That's a discussion that has to be had with the project managers, Cera and others. We have to leave that to the professionals."

Others are not so reluctant to come out fighting for the cathedral.

Legendary architect Sir Miles Warren, a Canon-Almoner, is scathing of the length of time it has taken for the church to come up with a plan for a way forward. He says the damaged structure should be repaired, with a timber interior frame and stone exterior, as the original architect, George Gilbert Scott, had intended.

"It's the cheapest option of the lot, by a long way. I think it would be a disaster for Christchurch to demolish and start again. I made a presentation along those lines. It got no further, all I got at the end was a `thank you' and that was it."

Former city missioner Canon David Morrell wants the cathedral restored to how it used to look and supports the timber frame option. He did not attend the deconsecration ceremony because he thought it sent a message to the people of Christchurch that the Church was abandoning the building.

However, he acknowledges that not everyone in Christchurch wants the cathedral rebuilt, and newspaper polls have shown people are divided over the issue.

"If you're sitting out in east Christchurch and you're going to lose your house and your suburb, then you're probably not highly focused on the cathedral as a priority."

But he believes the Church needs to be more open, and allow public input. "I do think the city deserves and is owed a debate."

Brendon Burns agrees. He believes the Church wants the building to come down.

"I think it's being steered towards demolition, that's my gut instinct. We have to take it out to the public domain and allow the people of Christchurch to have a say on the future of the cathedral because it's their cathedral, it's not the Anglicans' or the council's or Cera's."

CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL
1858: Prolific British architect George Gilbert Scott, known for his gothic revival churches, is commissioned to design a cathedral for a new city planned by the Canterbury Association.
1864: Cornerstone laid.
1865-1873: Financial problems delay building.
1873: New Zealand architect Benjamin Mountfort takes over project and construction begins again.
1881: Nave and tower consecrated. The building is damaged by an earthquake.
1888: Building damaged by earthquake.
1901: Building damaged by earthquake.
1904: Transepts, chancel and sanctuary completed.
1978: Original bells replaced by 13 new bells.
2006-07: Cathedral undergoes major renovations, including replacement of original slate roof tiles.
2010: Cathedral damaged by earthquake.
2011: Severely damaged by earthquake, partial demolition announced.

- © Fairfax NZ News