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Open-Air Preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral, London: Where Tyndale's Bible was Burned

1,224 views · Published 10 June 2015 · 33:58 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: Tony Miano · 2015 · Nonprofits & Activism

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During Tony and Bobby McCreery's first full day on the streets of London, the two spent time preaching outside of the famous and infamous St. Paul's Cathedral. St. Paul's was best known during the 20th century for being one of the very few churches in all of England to not be destroyed during the Nazi Germany Blitzkrieg and the Battle of Britain. Five centuries early, the church had a more dubious distinction. St. Paul's was the place where William Tyndale's English translation was burned and a warrant was issued for Tyndale's arrest.

From the St. Paul Cathedral's website:

"Was this small but potent volume the most dangerous book in Tudor England ? Henry VIII thought it might be and tried to stop its translation and printing. In 1526 the publication of William Tyndale’s book opened up for the first time the whole of the New Testament in English and helped to bring continental Reformation ideals to the people of England. Tyndale wrote that the Church authorities banned translations of the Bible in order 'to keep the world still in darkness, to the intent they might sit in the consciences of the people, through vain superstition and false doctrine... and to exalt their own honor... above God himself’.
 
"Inspired to get the Bible in to the hands of the people, Tyndale had to travel to Cologne to start printing, betrayed, he was forced to move on to Worms and from there copies were smuggled in to England. The Bishop of London, sent out a prohibition, burning copies in a  grand gesture at St Paul’s on 27 October 1526 and a Canon of the Cathedral was responsible for planning Tyndale’s eventual arrest in Antwerp.

"Although Tyndale was executed the words in which he expressed the content of the New Testament live on. Roughly eighty percent of the King James New Testament used today is Tyndale’s work. The following phrases appear in print for the first time in Tyndale’s translation: ‘broken-hearted’; ‘eat drink and be merry’; ‘signs of the times’; ‘flowing with milk and honey.'
 
"In spite of the efforts to hunt down and destroy the translation this copy survived in defiance of church and state and is one of only three left in existence. It entered the library collection in a bequest, the true significance of this volume, which helped change the literary, religious and political landscape for ever was only realized in the nineteenth century."

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