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What We Believe

Vision Statement

The Chapel Royal is a community within the liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England which is led by the Gospels and works to inspire others to come to faith in Christ Jesus.

The community is dedicated to maintaining a prayerful, inclusive and diverse Christian ethos, centred around the Eucharist with sacraments at the forefront.

Mission Statement

We have the following priorities:

  • To include and consider all to be of equal value, affirming everyone as children of God.
  • To have a worship life, especially as a city centre church, which is largely focused on reaching out to the marginalised. These groups include, but are not limited to the homeless, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and those recovering from addiction.
  • To share our building on an almost daily basis with 12 step programmes and other groups.
  • To gather as sisters and brothers in Christ, inspired by the scriptures to be welcoming and open to all, actively seeking to include and affirm our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters and to continue welcoming Refugees and Asylum seekers.
  • To provide outreach to the many students of Brighton and Hove and provide them a safe space in which to explore and develop their faith.
  • To maintain good relationships with those in our parish, including the nearby businesses and charities. We also open our church on a weekly basis for lunchtime concerts that bring in many visitors to church.

The Chapel Royal is a quiet, reflective and inclusive space situated in Central Brighton which attracts, gathers and nurtures those who may have experienced displacement and exclusion.

Statement Of Faith

We believe that God created all things, some believing literally in the Genesis accounts and others taking them as a figurative way of declaring that there is a creator and a creation process and that God delights in His creation and has plans for it. Both views are held by members of our congregations and respected. We believe that God is somehow ‘transcendent,’ that is, bigger than and beyond His creation; but He is also ‘immanent,' that is with us and within us through His Holy Spirit.

We believe in God as a person - not as energy, a force or simply love - but as a person who somehow lives in unity, or as one person, with His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. That is the mystery of the Trinity; it is a difficult concept but there is no other way of explaining God’s work in creation and His continuing work in us today. Jesus and the Spirit are not afterthoughts or subordinate persons; they were with God and in God and they were God from the very beginning. We believe that the world has seen God, not only figuratively in the early Genesis stories but as Jesus Christ in relatively recent history, of which there are excellent verifiable accounts both within Scripture and in contemporary literature.

The birth, life and death of Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies made over 500 years before and these may be found in the Old Testament of the Bible. We believe that Jesus came to reconcile us with God. Our behaviour and our sins made us unworthy to be in God’s presence but the painful gesture of crucifixion on the cross at Calvary was Jesus’ way of dispensing with all the old methods of trying to make reparation for wrongdoing and of accomplishing a once-and-for-all ‘atonement for sin.' We believe that Jesus’ amazing sacrifice was done out of love for us and to enable us to be deemed pure and holy by God - to be deemed fit to be called members of His family. We believe that we are now sons and daughters of God. We become members of His family as a consequence of Jesus’ sacrifice and through the rite of baptism. We believe that as members of God’s family we are part of ‘the communion of saints’ linking all Christians through time and across the world and into the future.

Christ instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist at the Last Supper on the night before He died on the Cross. In Matthew’s Gospel we read: "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, “Drink this, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28). The celebration of the Eucharist is at the heart of the Mass - our worship and ministry. We believe that as Jesus returned to His Father in heaven after His time on earth, He left us His Holy Spirit to guide, comfort and strengthen us. Being a Christian is not just a matter of assenting belief in God and Christ but is essentially a matter of experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, transforming our lives in the present and preparing us for life's destination - heaven. And we believe that Jesus will return; not as an infant in a humble stable but as a King to bring His people together, to draw this age to a close and to reunite heaven and earth.

We believe that the Bible is more than a narrative of past events or the promise of things to come. It is the living Word of God. God continues to speak to us and to transform our broken lives through His holy Word today and through the blessed Sacrament of the Mass in Sunday and Wednesday worship.

We would love to invite you to join us at the Chapel Royal, to make you welcome and to help you discover Christ for yourself.