Peterborough Cathedral has been slammed for its plan to host £39-a-ticket Ibiza-style concert.
All Souls’ Day in the Cambridgeshire city will bring a ‘night of Ibiza Classics’ featuring saxophonist and DJ double-act Lovely Laura and Ben Santiago at the 12th-century religious centre.
Cathedral staff said the money was vital for paying bills and building the congregations, but critics have seen the event as evidence of cathedrals losing ‘confidence in their core mission’.
Peterborough Cathedral, the burial place of Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon, follows its Canterbury counterpart which raised £12,000 through two sellout nights earlier this year.
Canterbury Cathedral’s two silent discos also sparked uproar with crowds of ecclesiastical Christian protesters gathering outside the Kent venue to sing hymns as ravers entered in February.
Peterborough Cathedral’s head of marketing and communication, Paul Stainton, said there was no choice but to diversify the use of the building.
He highlighted to The Telegraph that Cathedrals are self-funding, getting no money from the Church of England.
‘Our electricity bill has gone up £120,000 this year,’ he revealed. ‘If we don’t do other things we wouldn’t be able to survive.’
The church’s accounts for 2021-2022 show it ending that time with a surplus of £190,152.
Mr Stainton also hoped non-religious events such as November 2’s concert might attract new faces to the cathedral and added the cathedral would be completely cleaned up and ready for normal worship by the following morning.
But some of the existing clergy questioned whether a night inspired by Ibiza – a hedonist’s haven – should occur on a day of religious significance.
All Souls’ Day tends to be commemorated by a candle-lit service where congregants remember fellow Christians they have lost.
The Reverend Daniel French, the presenter of the Irreverend podcast and vicar of Salcombe, said the event is ‘incongruent with the Christian message’.
‘An Ibiza night is going to be pumping out a message of hyper-individualism and sexual licence,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t feel quite right.’
Mr French expressed doubt that Peterborough’s clergy really believe the night will attract more people to their church, saying it is not ‘a coherent form of evangelism’.
However, despite the protests outside Canterbury Cathedral in February, over a dozen churches revealed plans to hold events similar to the silent discos in the following months.
The two sellout events for 3000 revellers, dubbed the ‘Rave in the Nave’, saw partygoers take in a 90s-themed disco, playing hits from the likes of Britney Spears, Eminem and Spice Girls.
Glowstick-clutching revellers danced the night away in the 1,400-year-old religious landmark’s iconic Nave, which was illuminated by LED lights from the headphones.
However, Christian protesters claimed the events were ‘the very opposite of holy’.
Dr Cajetan Skowronski, a medical doctor involved in the Sacred Matters campaign group which opposes cathedrals in the UK being turned into ‘nightclubs’, said: ‘While respectful of our right to protest, the Dean was dismissive of our petition, stating that we were an extreme minority – for not wanting an alcohol-fuelled rave to the music of Eminem in God’s house.’