page_title: Alexander Mackonochie
section_title: Persecution
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Mackonochie / Persecution
caption_attribution_description: Caricature of Reverend Alexander Heriot Mackonochie. Caption read "He makes religion a tragedy, and the movements of his muscles a solemn ceremony".
context_page_description: Alexander Heriot Mackonochie SSC was a Church of England mission priest known as "the martyr of St Alban's" on account of his prosecution and forced resignation for ritualist practices.
context_section_description: St Alban's increasingly became a focus of Low Church ire, drawing the attention of Lord Shaftesbury and the ultra-Protestant and anti-ritualist Church Association. 
  In 1867, a prosecution was brought against Mackonochie by John Martin, supported by the Church Association, under the Church Discipline Act 1840. The charges brought were elevating the host above his head, using a mixed chalice and altar lights, censing things and persons, and kneeling during the prayer of consecration. 
  The first decision (of the Court of Arches) was against Mackonochie on two counts and in his favour on the other three, with no decision as to the payment of costs. Despite Mackonochie agreeing to comply, the anti-ritualists appealed to the Privy Council, which found against Mackonochie in the remaining three charges; and he was ordered to pay all costs. 
  Even after the prosecution the Church Association continued to pursue Mackonochie, believing that he had re-introduced the prohibited ritual. 
  This led to further judgments against Mackonochie, culminating on 25 November 1870 with his suspension from office for three months. 
  In the interim he had become a hate-figure for the Low Church; in 1869 he was banned from preaching in the Diocese of Ripon and a Low Church cleric, Hugh M‘Neile, refused to speak at the Liverpool Church Congress because Mackonochie would also be speaking.
  A second lawsuit was brought in March 1874 repeating the old charges as well as adding new ones including the use of processions with a crucifix, use of the Agnus Dei, and the ancient custom of the eastward-facing consecration. (The normal practice, prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, was to stand at the north end of the altar facing south; westward-facing consecration, as is now most common in the Church of England, was only introduced by Cranmer and as an attempt to deemphasise the sacrificial nature of the traditional Mass.) Mackonochie stood firm in the face of the prosecutions but on 12 June 1875 was found against on most of the charges and suspended for six weeks.
  In 1878, John Martin appealed to the Dean of Arches, claiming that Mackonochie had not obeyed the 1875 judgement. Mackonochie was brought in front of the new court created by the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874. Mackonochie was this time suspended for three years.
  In 1882 a fresh round of prosecutions was under way when, at the deathbed request of Archbishop Tait, Mackonochie resigned from St Alban's to move to St Peter's, London Docks, the church founded in 1866 by C.F. Lowder. Though by 1882 the mob violence that Mackonochie had faced during his time with Lowder in the 1850s and 1860s had abated, the prosecutions continued. Despite the vibrancy of St Peter's Mackonochie was extremely unhappy: he had moved from St Alban's out of a sense of duty. He missed his old parish and his self-confidence was waning. By July 1883 he faced yet another suspension. In December, knowing his suspension would be disastrous for the parish, and only a year after resigning from St Alban's, he handed his resignation to the Bishop. Unlike his resignation from St Alban's, his friends almost unanimously supported this resignation, knowing it was required for the good of both the parish and of his health.
caption: "He makes religion a tragedy, and the movements of his muscles a solemn ceremony"
  Mackonochie as caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, December 1870
exif: {}