After weeks of ignoring the occupiers camped outside St Paul’s, the cathedral has agreed to open dialogue, but only after it sought legal action to evict occupiers.
On Sunday, the Dean of St Paul’s Graeme Knowles and the Bishop of London Dr Richard Chartres met with the occupiers to listen to and speak to them about their concerns.
At the public meeting, they said they did not want the eviction to be violent, and that they were willing to open dialogue over the issues the movement was trying to address.
Chartres told the crowd the movement’s issues were very complex and needed to “move into a dialogue that has a great deal of practical sense, because if we are going to make any changes we have got to actually move beyond just slogans.”
However, many protesters told the Occupied Times they felt the clerics were evasive of their questions, and did not say anything of real substance.
Many in the movement were concerned about a violent eviction, after it was announced on Friday that St Paul’s and the City of London Corporation were planning on getting high court injunctions to remove the protesters.
Chartres told the occupiers “nobody wants to see violence.”
Musician and occupier Ben Doran felt the men were contradictory with their intentions to evict, but also not wanting violence.
“An eviction would apply violence. As a logical process you can’t be against one and for the other,” he said.
Occupier Tanya Paton, who was part of a working group responsible for liaising with the cathedral, told the Occupied Times she had been trying to open dialogue with the cathedral for the past two weeks, and was pleased they had finally started talking to occupiers.
However, she was also concerned about a violent eviction and hoped the church would commit to protecting the occupiers from one.
“If they put their name to an eviction and it becomes a violent or forceful eviction they will make themselves out to be liars.”
She was happy to hear the cathedral intended to meet with occupiers again and continue speaking and addressing issues.
The actions of the cathedral in dealing with OccupyLSX had, at the time of print, lead to two St Paul’s clergy quit their posts in solidarity with the protesters.
First was the canon chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, Dr Giles Fraser. He said he could not support the possibility of “violence in the name of the church”.
A few days following this announcement, the Rev Fraser Dyer, who worked as a chaplain at St Paul’s, stepped down because he was “left feeling embarrassed” by the cathedrals decision to legally evict protesters.
By Stacey Knott
