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The Seventh Day Journal
September, 2003
Dear Friends,
This has been a busy month for Part Four of The Seventh Day Project. We’ve been in New
York City and Albany, on the east coast, and in several sites in England, filming interviews.
One of our experts hails from Portugal. José Alberto Tavim met us in NYC where he did
the interview in Portuguese, with a translator nearby. He’s studied deeply into Jewish
history, and had some fascinating things to share about the Portuguese Inquisition, the Jews
and the Sabbath. Many Jews in Spain and Portugal converted to Catholicism under persecution
and the threat of expulsion. Eventually they were forced to leave anyway, fleeing to far away
places, including Goa, in India, where they and their descendants later faced the Inquisition
again. Anyone who refused to worship on Sunday was immediately accused of being
Jew, although many protested that they were not. How many were actually Jews trying to
keep their religion in secrecy, how many were actually Christians keeping the Bible Sabbath,
and how many were neither but simply falsely accused is still surrounded by mystery.
Dr. Tavim had a most intriguing piece of information for us: He has come into contact with a
small group of St. Thomas Christians in southern India who separated from the larger body of
the St. Thomas Church many hundreds of years ago, and who to this very day, keep the Bible
Sabbath! We’ll be following up on that.
Three of us arrived in England a few days before scheduled to shoot in order to scout for locations.
It was so good to see our old friend Ray waiting for us at the airport, full of energy and good
cheer! Ray has helped us in two other England shoots. We set off immediately for the castles
and cathedrals he’d lined up for us to see. And he’d already been on the phone wrangling
permissions for us to film in these well known historical locations.
On Sabbath we took our lives in our hands and drove ourselves (through narrow lanes on the wrong
side of the road) to the city of Guildford to meet with members of our family - our church family
in England. We only had to ask directions once on the way and twice on the way back, and were
only a half hour late for Sabbath School. The young Ukrainian pastor met us at the door and
invited me to take the sermon time to tell about The Seventh Day project. What a surprise! The
small congregation was truly an international one, with folks from as far away as Australia,
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, the Czech Republic, South Africa, Ukraine and the US.
I loved telling them bits of Sabbath history from their own part of the world.
One of our experts is a professor at Lancaster University, a couple hundred miles north of London.
After searching fruitlessly all morning for just the right spot to shoot, we asked a delightful
gentleman if he knew of any old churches with graveyards in the area. He directed us down
this road and over that hill to the small village of “Cockrum” which being interpreted,
is “Cockerham.” Sure enough, in the midst of wide green fields, where big black
and white cows amiably chewed their cud, stood a beautiful old stone church dating back to the
Normans, surrounded by a stone wall and hundreds of gravestones.
To get there, we drove down a long lane, narrow and obscure, and parked outside the ancient
wall alongside some rather recent evidences of the big cows...OOPS!
Church was just getting out and the pastor kindly met with us and agreed to our filming among
his tombstones.
On the morning of the interview, a wind blew up and cows hung out by the slatted gate watching
our rather unusual happenings inside. Professor Mullett was his knowledgeable, expressive
and delightful self, and waxed eloquent on the happenings at the Council of Trent, Martin Luther
and Carlstadt, and etc.
The village Pub generously agreed to stay open past 2 PM to feed us one of the best meals we
had on the whole trip - with fresh garden veggies cooked to perfection.
Our next interview took place in the Great Room of Penshurst Place, a beautiful old estate dating
back to the 13th century. Tørstein Jorgensen talked about the Sabbatarians in the
15th century who caused such conflict in the town of Bergen, Norway, that a council was held,
banning their Sabbath worship. Professor Jorgensen was quite sure that only the priests
would have had the courage and authority to lead out in such aberrant worship, rather than lay
people.
The gorgeous Hever Castle, childhood home of Anne Bolleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII (and beheaded
by him), was the site of our interview with Dr. Richard Müller. With ducks quacking
in the background, and birds flying by, Dr. Müller expounded on the Sabbatarian views
of Dr. Carlstadt, the reactions of Luther and Calvin, and the case of a 17th century Lutheran
priest who was dismissed for his Sabbatarian teachings.
I’m praising God for a safe and profitable trip, for fair weather and great interviews.
I’m also praising God for progress. We’re essentially finished with interviews and
on to a final shooting script.
Thank you for your prayers, interest and support.
And blessings to you,
Pat Arrabito
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