Introduction

Canon Nitano Muller discusses his landing in June 2024, in Coventry Cathedral, as Canon of Worship and Welcome. In the Hear Here podcast he speaks from both the archives room and the pulpit in the nave. Archives now sit under his ambit, he imagines how archives can become the pulse of courageous global stories told and heard in the space of the cathedral. He views the archives and the layered interpretations of the cathedral, as part of the process of welcoming guests and visitors from all walks of life.

He was previously a part-time Chaplain to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to whom he ministered before he passed away in 2021. This relationship has curated his thinking and theology around justice and reconciliation. Today he navigates a paradigm shift with racialised dynamics at an existential level as a black Canon, both within the cathedral, and amongst a global majority mixed congregation. He carries his embodied experience of apartheid South Africa, as well as black liberation, feminist and queer theology, towards reconciliation and justice.

Disrupting the somatic norm in church leadership within the UK, he reclaims the legacy of empire and British history, through the work of justice from Coventry Cathedral and the Cross of Nails mission. In the archives, Nitano looks back at hopeful images from the past for conducting multiculturalism, anti-racism and experiments in the earlier years of the new cathedral. He proposes that creatives practices need to reclaim untold stories and reclaim our imaginations, from the roof, the welcome desk, the pulpit, as well as the steps outside the cathedral.

Biography

Nitano comes from the small fishing-community of Ocean View, located at the southern-most tip of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. He completed a degree in Education and worked as a language and history teacher. While working as a teacher, Nitano was discerned for ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of False Bay within the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and entered residential theological training at the College of the Transfiguration, Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown).

He served his curacies in two vastly different contexts, in Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats, and Hermanus along the south-eastern coastline of False Bay (where he ministered to the Late Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a parishioner). Nitano served as the Diocesan Chaplain for Young People, a consultant for the Provincial Liturgical Committee, and a representative of his diocese on the South African Council of Churches (Western Cape). His passions include liturgy, youth development and the work of justice and reconciliation. In 2022, Nitano was selected as a Trinity Leadership Fellow, a program run by Trinity Wall Street, New York, for emerging faith leaders from across the world who seek to enhance their skills towards meaningful change and transformation in their respective fields and contexts.

Nitano's first encounter with Coventry Cathedral was its welcome sign posted at the West Screen entrance, which he says made him feel at home because he identified with many of the traits described in it.

Coventry Cathedrals Welcome message

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, widowed, straight, gay, confused, well-heeled or down-at-heel. We especially welcome wailing babies and excited toddlers.

We welcome you whether you can sing like Pavarotti or just growl quietly to yourself. You’re welcome here if you’re just browsing, just woken up or just got out of prison. We don’t care if you’re more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury or haven’t been to church since Christmas 10 years ago.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome keep-fit moms, football dads, starving artists, tree huggers, latte sippers, vegetarians, junk food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems, are down in the dumps or don’t like organised religion. We’re not that keen on it either.

We offer welcome to those who think the Earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or are here because Granny is visiting and wanted to come to the cathedral. We welcome those who are inked, pierced, both or neither. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down their throats as kids or got lost on the Ring Road and wound up here by mistake.

We welcome pilgrims, tourists, seekers, doubters and you.

First published on: 11th March 2024

Podcast

Transcript

NIRMAL PUWAR: Welcome to the podcast Hear Here. Today we're sitting in the archives with Canon Nitano Muller, who very recently joined Coventry Cathedral from South Africa. We first met right in this archive when you were exploring whether you wanted to come and work here and serve the community. Carla Crawley was actually walking you through and passed you on to me for a few minutes, and just that day, I happened to be looking at booklets and photographs related to South Africa.

We have a very big photograph in front of us here of Desmond Tutu’s visit to the Cathedral in the 1980s, and there he was with his pink-purple gown. He was holding on to his cap because it was very windy in the ruins. So, tell us about your journey in terms of arriving at the Cathedral.

NITANO MULLER: Thanks, Nirmal, for having me. It's been amazing just getting to know you and your work. I landed here in late May last year after a lengthy discernment process. As you rightly pointed out, I visited in 2023 as part of that process for about a week, spending a couple of hours in the main building, while also exploring the nooks and crannies of the Cathedral, where Carla introduced me to the archives.

I was trained as a history and geography teacher prior to ministry. I don't think I told you this before, but I taught history and geography, particularly the social sciences as we call them back home in South Africa, to primary, high school, and secondary school. So, history is a part of who I am and what I do.

And so, I've landed in this role shortly after a stint working as a parish priest in Cape Town on the Cape Flats in South Africa. It was a medium-sized parish of about 1,500 worshipping members but riddled with all sorts of social ills and ramifications of the apartheid legacy after the forced removals in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So many of the people that I'm ministered to are still reeling from that legacy of food insecurity, unemployment, gangsterism, drugs, and all the rest of it; the full nine yards.

So, ministry in the Cape in South Africa has been particularly hard but also quite rewarding. As part of my own discernment process, I asked: God, where do you want me to serve? How would you like me to use my skills and my talents?

I served as a part-time chaplain to Archbishop Desmond from 2019 to 2021. I looked after a congregation, but because he lived in my congregation, I also ministered to him. It was there that he planted the seeds of reconciliation in my heart, besides my lived experience as a South African. He sort of curated a lot of my thinking and my theology around justice and reconciliation.

I would have the immense privilege of being alone with him for about an hour on a Thursday at noon every week, and we would celebrate Holy Communion together, as it was part of his daily practice as a Christian, an ordained person, and an Archbishop. I would just sit at his feet and listen to the stories, his little anecdotes and his humour. He was so humorous even to the end, and until he was terribly ill at the end of 2021, so much so that he did not come out of the hospital and died in December of 2021.

So, I was sort of one of the last people to have ministered to him before he died. He spoke to me about his time in Coventry and Coventry Cathedral. I then saw this particular role and flagged it to him, as it were, and he said: "Oh well, you know, if you ever have the chance to visit, go". Lo and behold, two years later, this particular role opens up, which is the Canon for Worship and Welcome. He said I should try it out, give it a go when an opportunity arose for me to visit Coventry, and so I thought, 'Let's give it a chance,' and I did.

So, I arrived in May of last year and was formally installed as a Canon in June. It’s been a whirlwind of an experience with a change of context, a change of culture and of language. English is not my first language; I'm an Afrikaans speaker. Afrikaans, of course, is indigenous to the Cape, but I've been educated in English. My university and my theological education were in English. So, I bring all that with me and I'm still landing, still finding my feet.

I spoke to someone this morning and said I'm beginning to feel as if my feet are making their way under the table as an analogy, but I am beginning to settle slowly but surely. Coming to a new context such as Coventry, having to understand the culture that already exists here and then still bringing my own little qualities and so on, has been a challenge but also quite a gift, because I feel that I've been stretched as a person to think beyond just my own little echo chamber.

NIRMAL PUWAR: When you say getting to know the culture, is that the Cathedral? The Church of England, as well as a city? And in what ways have you been stretched?

NITANO MULLER: Good question. I thank you for naming it in that way because I think my experience has been layered. I mean, as much as the Anglican Church in Southern Africa is part of the global Anglican communion or family of Anglican churches, it has still been an experience to come and learn about the Church of England as an entity in and of itself. So, that was one layer. Another layer involves simply discovering myself in a very multicultural city. I did not anticipate Coventry being as multicultural as it actually is.

I live in a complex where the majority of the residents are South Asian and East Asian, and so my neighbour and I often exchange recipes from where we come from. My neighbour is from Hong Kong, and so navigating the city and the Church of England has been an experience in and of itself.

Coventry has its own peculiarities; it has its own dynamics and theological diversity. The Cathedral is a space that is unique because it serves as the heartbeat of the diocese but is also a civic space, a gathering place for the city, its civic leaders and the communities that make up the city of Coventry. It’s just such a multi-layered experience, and navigating it has been a challenge.

That's why I say I've been stretched because I come from South Africa—the rainbow nation—but because of the legacy of apartheid, communities there have been intentionally constructed around race. So, my ministerial experience has been rooted in a mixed-race context or, as we are known back in South Africa, as the coloured people. That is not a derogatory term where we come from; it's actually an official term for a race group, and so I identify as a coloured person. My ministerial experience has been predominantly in those contexts, even during my time as a teacher. So, coming to a city where languages, theological perspectives and gender dynamics are diverse has opened up a very different world of experiences for me.

NIRMAL PUWAR: So, you said you grew up with race being so marked and so present. Coventry is a very mixed city. How have you found race, in terms of being the first visibly black Canon in the Cathedral? What is it like to be the first, for you?

[00:09:29]

NITANO MULLER: I see myself as a part of a much bigger picture and much bigger work that has been happening both at the Cathedral and also in the city, and perhaps in the world. I think there has been and continues to be a major paradigm shift around race dynamics.

So, coming to the UK has been quite an experience because for the first time, I identified as a global majority heritage person. In fact, I think the flip side of that would be UKME (United Kingdom Minority Ethnic groups), previously known as BAME. Suddenly, I found myself placed into a box, quite clearly and quite deliberately labelled. So yes, it’s definitely been an experience.

I know for a fact that once upon a time, I too sat in the pew of a church that was designated for a particular racial group, and I saw a priest of colour in my early days of the new South Africa. As a child, seeing a black priest and what that meant to me on a very existential level was quite moving.

So, I know that my presence in the Cathedral as, you say, the first visibly black Canon, holds significant meaning for the many students who worship here, the visitors who come to the Cathedral, and the worshippers of colour who have been part of this community for many years yet have never been a part of an active role or perhaps even had a voice in the governance of this particular place. To suddenly see a face and a voice with a bit of a twang and an accent opens the door for them in a way that allows them to see themselves as a part of this community in a meaningful way.

NIRMAL PUWAR: This moving experience you had as a young person seeing a person of colour, a black priest, could you still feel it? I think when you were describing it, I could see it in your eyes. Could you share that a little bit with us?

[00:11:54]

NITANO MULLER: So, back in Cape Town, communities were designated as “white only” and “black only” areas and so on. My family, both paternal and maternal, comes from Simon’s town, which was designated as an all-white area. It is a gorgeous coastal part of the Cape, at the southernmost tip, in fact. My family was forcibly removed to a township called Ocean View, which was just hills of sand.

My family, along with others, had to build lives for themselves from the ground up, literally. Our historical family church was St. Francis in Simon’s Town. The church is just over 200 years old now and is the oldest Anglican church in southern Africa. Simon’s Town, of course, was a British naval base, part of the Royal Navy’s route to India, so this goes far deeper than what we see on the surface. It connects to trade routes, the spice trade, and colonial history.

So, my family church—St. Francis—was where my grandparents and great-grandparents were married, baptised, and deeply involved in church life. But when Simon’s Town was reclassified as a whites-only area, the government told them they could no longer live there.

So, annually, we would go back to St. Francis on the last Sunday in January as a family. Again, of course, lots of eyebrows raised because what are these people doing back here again? So, we are still dealing with the implications of the apartheid ideology and racist thinking, but my family was determined to go to St. Francis to make this pilgrimage annually. It was on a particular Sunday in the late 1990s when my own consciousness was beginning to develop.

I think it was 1998. A black priest was invited to preach that Sunday morning from a local community called Massipumilele, which is not too far from where we lived. He preached and presided at the eucharist that Sunday morning, and I sat there with my jaw on the ground because in my mind, clergy were only white.

I see this young man—bless him, he still works in the ministry today, but much older now, of course—and I've built a friendship with him over the years. He was instrumental in helping me understand that my calling to ministry was valid and that my place in the church was valid. That experience was poignant. He’s been phenomenal; he was a part of my formation as a young priest in the church and in my own realisation of who I was. Twenty years later, I was ordained in 2018 as a priest, and so again, the power of representation was important even in the early years of my life.

NIRMAL PUWAR: The scenes of dispossession and displacement, and the will to return, along with, as you point out, the global trade of military connections, all run through you and your family. They are very present, and you bring all of that here to the city and possibly to the work that the Church of England still needs to do. We know that a West Midlands anti-racist group is now being constituted in its early stages, which also faces some challenges.

I'm really drawn to how your description of that young priest in a white male somatic body transforming into something else. It alters, and you're probably doing the same kind of—I wouldn't say camouflage— but this sort of somatic change regarding who's at the front. Do you feel that?

NITANO MULLER: Yes, I think I've never felt more black [laughs]. I've never felt more African because I'm so aware when I sit around these board meetings and synod gatherings, and so on, that when I speak, I speak with a particular accent, and when I preach, I preach through a particular lens of liberation theology and black theology.

So, speaking to an almost exclusively white audience on many occasions is just such a poignant thing. It’s a sudden reversal of roles, as this young black clergy person from Africa now comes to work in the UK.

Many of my friends, my family, and perhaps even colleagues asked, “What's this about? What's your thinking behind making this move to Coventry?” And I said, “I don't see it as a missionary task. I'm not coming to the UK to bring the gospel”. It's certainly a part of the role, but I think at a very existential level, there's a reclaiming that forms part of why I've come here. I know a big part of my personal history and my family's has been so largely shaped by the United Kingdom and its legacy of empire. So, at a very personal level, coming to the UK has been part of reclaiming my own identity and navigating my sense of self, allowing me to own that at a deep level, given our history.

But I know that people like me have contributions to make on a global scale. I don't say this as some sort of virtue signalling or anything, but I believe what we've come to discover, particularly in South Africa, is that apartheid did not end simply because we fought it on the ground; there were partnerships across the world. There were voices from across the world —Coventry being one of them in a large plethora of voices —that said, injustice is injustice. So, coming to Coventry and forming a part of this particular community with its networks across the world, through the community of the Cross of Nails, has opened up a door for me to say that South Africa still has a lot to say and a lot to offer to the work of justice and reconciliation in the world.

NIRMAL PUWAR: You mentioned black liberation theology being central to your learning and your practice. How do you see yourself combining it with the Cross of Nails mission, for instance?

[00:19:44]

NITANO MULLER: Again, I owe a lot of that to the archbishop because he planted those seeds. My own formation was influenced by black theologians, some of whom have become prominent bishops in the Anglican church. In fact, one of them, the Bishop of St. Shekhabe, was the first black woman to preach at the Lambeth Conference, a once-every-decade gathering of bishops and primates from around the world.

It has almost always been the Archbishop of Canterbury who spoke at that particular event, and for the first time, a couple of years ago —two or three years ago —she was chosen as the preacher at that service. I was sitting where I was, watching her speak from the pulpit at Canterbury Cathedral, here at Lambeth; it was a poignant moment for me. And, not just a black person but a young black woman. That inspired me in many ways long before I even came here.

So, I'm a student of black theology, liberation theology, queer theology and feminist theology. We have something to contribute to the work of reconciliation in the world, and the established network of the Cross of Nails opens that door for that work and for those conversations to happen, for those partnerships to form.

I met a young woman from Argentina last week, who was visiting the Cathedral. We were talking a little bit about the political situation happening there and how much of that is still a long-term struggle in the global south, and I said, your experience is mine. We share, from two very different continents, very similar experiences around identity and basic human rights. I said that the conversation we're having is one that we should be having at a global level, and I'm hoping that's something I can bring to the community of the Cross of Nails as a black, young queer person myself.

I think it's about awareness at the moment. I think many of our partners in the community of the Cross of Nails are working within their context, and rightly so. However, I think we have much to share with one another on the best practices around reconciliation and having courageous conversations against the backdrop of the current rise of Christian nationalism globally. Moreover, what can the community of the Cross of Nails contribute in that context and in those conversations?

NIRMAL PUWAR: I like those courageous conversations, so you will be taking us on some of those journeys and challenges. I'm sure you anticipate some kind of defensive reaction. I guess that's part of the work that you're envisaging ahead of you?

NITANO MULLER: Absolutely. I think the world has become such a complacent place. Everyone seems to fall into a bit of a lull—individuals, organisations, and perhaps even nations and countries. We just do what we do, really. I think what's happening in the world is shaking us up at the moment, in terms of geopolitics, theology, nationalism and our sense of identity, where we come from and who we are.

I think the time is now to have bold, frank, honest conversations about who we are, where we are and how we relate to one another. That was something Archbishop Tutu was always at pains to name, that is my well-being is interconnected to yours. I am because we are. So, I think a reclaiming of Ubuntu theology ultimately is what we need at this time, and I think that's something that Coventry Cathedral can offer, with me here now as an embodiment of that. It’s something that I think we can use as a compass.

So, it's one thing to have courageous conversations. That's all going well, but it needs to take us somewhere; it needs to direct us in a particular direction. I think the lenses and the legacy that the archbishop offers the world is a constant reminder that we can say all these things to one another and about one another, but ultimately, I am because you are. We are intrinsically connected, and so what I say needs to be said in love; it needs to be said in kindness, and it needs to be said with the end goal in mind that the community must be bold and upheld. At the moment, I think we're moving further and further away from one another.

NIRMAL PUWAR: I wondered if we could return back to your geography and history. Coventry has radical traditions as well as right-wing traditions. As you know, the 1970s Two-tone was formed not out of the blue, but because there was so much racism on the streets. In this project, I've been kind of delving into the multicultural experiments that were happening in the Cathedral, and they did use the word experiments a lot in the 1960s and 1970s.

[00:25:48]

I'm sure I've told you before that Martin Luther King had a special service in the nave, which was packed with a thousand people in 1968. Here are just some pages of this magazine that used to be published by the Cathedral, called Coventry Cathedral Network. This one is from the 1970s [flipping through pages] and you’ll see, Nitano, there’s a piece by Reverend Peter Berry, who was the community relations lead at the Cathedral. The title is “Race relations and Christian responsibility”.

There was a lot of work happening. This is a very simple image from 1979 from the Network magazine. I was quite surprised to see – I don't know why I'm surprised – a young black woman at the welcome desk. She and her colleague, a white woman with blonde hair, are named Melody Pratt and Ingrid Berger. They’re shown talking to visitors at the information desk in the Cathedral nave. As you mentioned, it’s truly about who is present in the space, what kinds of bodies are there, and how that shapes the way the Cathedral has been made, and how it could be made. I wonder what you think of that image.

NITANO MULLER: I think it's a beautiful image; it's a telling image. There’s a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. She’s not the only person of colour, is she? I think there's a young woman just at the back there, actually.

NIRMAL PUWAR: Yeah.

NITANO MULLER: She looks of Indian descent, perhaps. I find this image is really hopeful, given that this work began years ago—October 1979—and there's a young white boy smiling at the camera with a toy in his hand. I think this is hopeful because it invites me, and certainly those who come to join the Cathedral and its work, to consider building on foundations as opposed to reinventing the wheel.

The fact that we had a black woman standing at the welcome desk welcoming visitors speaks to the risk-taking that the Cathedral was involved in in its early years. As I said, the world has become such a complacent place; we've kind of fallen into comfortable spaces, and so it's going to need us to reclaim this heritage. The fact that we've had conversations about some of the untold stories of the Cathedral, about the men of colour from across the Empire who were involved right from the foundations, from the literal laying of the stone.

NIRMAL PUWAR: And looking at these photos from the Laing archive, I was so surprised to see so many people of colour who were part of the building team. But they're not in our imaginations. And this photo looks like a young man who's part of the Air Force and is putting on the roof there. So, I suppose that's the work we also need to engage in, thinking about the geography and history of this place.

[00:29:37]

NITANO MULLER: Absolutely. Reclaiming, as I say, the untold stories of this place and the fact that diversity is within the very fabric of this building, from the roof as we just saw, to the welcome desk, to the foundations and the pulpit.

I think there's been a slow but gradual progression of this work, but I think what is lacking at the moment is awareness of diversity at the level of the DNA of this organisation. We’ve been pushing boundaries—and people of colour from across the world have been part of our story—but, as you said, they haven’t been part of our imagination.

And so, I think tapping into that imagination is through storytelling. A former colleague of mine—who is now in the Oxford diocese— always describes reconciliation as brave storytelling and courageous listening. This particular organisation is designed for that and so the lifting up of this image and the images that you've shown me and the stories that I know you'll be telling in weeks to come about people who've been a part of the building of this place is important and that's the awareness I think that needs to be raised.

When we think of Coventry Cathedral amongst the network of cathedrals in the United Kingdom, we think of a 900-year-old building that was built by Normans or whatever. When, in fact, Coventry Cathedral tells a very different story, at least the new Cathedral tells a very different story and the evolution of that story, I think, is how we are becoming more and more aware of our humanity.

And so, I think where we find ourselves now, those stories need to be made even louder and more visible. Lifting these things—these artefacts—out of our archives is of such importance because it reminds us where we come from.

NIRMAL PUWAR: It's a post-war history or inter-war history. What do you think an archive could become? Given your vision and liberation justice values, what do you think an archive could become in this context?

NITANO MULLER: So, the archive at the moment sits within my orbit as a Canon for Worship and Welcome. How welcoming a space is depends on how well it tells its story, and I think that the archive is the framework for that work to happen.

It gives us the resources through which we can tell those stories because, at the moment—of course, as is the case with all archives—we have shelves and shelves of information. However, it is the interpretation of that information that truly matters and how those stories are told and retold. This particular space is really special; this is the heart of the Cathedral. Should we lose this, we might as well just close our doors.

[00:33:27]

I'm hoping that this archive will become the heartbeat and pulse for those courageous conversations to happen, because it’s not as if we're creating this out of nowhere. This is work that has already been done; foundations have already been laid. We need to ask, how do we progress? How do we develop it? How do we champion it even more? I'm hoping that this archive will also become the tool we use to make visible the people who sit within the pews of our worshipping congregations.

As I said, we have many students from the university—both Coventry and Warwick—who worship here and have historical connections to the Anglican churches from their home countries, whether in Asia, Africa, or South America. We want them to recognise that when we say we are part of an Anglican communion, we are actually saying we are part of an Anglican family and that their stories are valid in this space. The experiences from which they come, whether from India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, South Africa, or Nigeria, are of value here.

We cannot speak about reconciliation, justice and peace when it's something that's done in a corner. It needs to be an embodied experience, which is why I think the South African context and my South African experience bring a lot to this space, because shortly after South Africa became a democratic country in 1994, storytelling was the first thing that was done. Archbishop Desmond led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the first couple of years, working to transition into democracy, and that's where stories were told, the harsh and cruel stories of how people were treated during the apartheid regime.

I have my opinions on how that work should have developed. Sadly, it has now become reports that sit on shelves in offices, and we're seeing the ramifications of that. It should have developed in a particular way, but it has not, and so the country's taken a particular direction. I think if we do not unpack the stories contained in the shelves, we’ll miss the opportunity to tap into this resource and make it the heartbeat of the organisation again, in a way that is equivalent to the finances, to the building, and to the human resources. I think the archive is as important as those other moving parts because it enables us to champion the work that is in the DNA of this building.

NIRMAL PUWAR: So, it's in the infrastructure of the building, and interestingly, a lot of the figures associated with the building, such as Basil Spence, who was born in India, said the Elephanta Caves really influenced him when he was taken there as a boy. Provost Williams, too, was from South Africa. Now, I haven't looked at his particular reason for being there; I'm sure there may be a colonial connection but that's the kind of work we need to also start doing because otherwise there's a flattened narrative rather than a kind of layered recognition of how it's contested, how we narrate, where we are. Should we go to the nave upstairs and think about how you feel in the space upstairs because you're there every day [fading].

Nitano, you've brought us here. Walked us through the nave to the top end, and you've chosen a particular spot. Tell us why you've brought us here?

NITANO MULLER: This high altar here in the new Cathedral is really special to me. I think it's my favourite part of the Cathedral because it represents a place of coming together. It's a place of gathering. There’s a table here, which is much larger than what I'm used to. I previously worked in a parish where we used an ordinary table, and so standing at the high altar, where you can gather around 50 people or so, is quite powerful.

Facing the people, the congregation, as they come in through the West Screen—this is what they face. In any Anglican church, really, this is the central point of worship. For us, it's special because it's at the foot of the tapestry; it's also just in front of the original Cross of Nails, which, of course, is the Cathedral's claim to fame, as it were, from the Blitz in 1940.

And so, it is a coming together of the world outside, but also our history behind us. What happens around the altar is a reimagining of community, comprising people from all parts of the world, diverse in their ethnicities, languages, and races. We are brought here for a common purpose; we eat from the same bread, we drink from the same cup, and I think that's revolutionary. It’s not just an act of religious piety, it's a reimagining of community, which I think is what we need in the world today more than ever. This is why this is special for me.

It's also my vantage point from which I am inspired to do what I do as the Canon for Worship and Welcome. I have, perhaps, some of the most creative briefs. I look after worship, which includes music, liturgy, and how people worship in this space, and so my fingerprint is on that.

But I also have the aspect of welcome, which looks at how we integrate people into the life of this place, of this building. It's not just about the building itself in terms of its fabric, but also in terms of how the people who come to worship here make this building come alive in a very special way. So, my vision for my role is—to use the catchphrase in my interview—to be the Canon for Welcome as Worship. That was what got me the job [laughs]. I'm the Canon for Welcome as Worship, so it's a reversal of that, but not necessarily in a bad way; rather, it holds the two as equal. I think for a long time, particularly in recent years, worship is held as something that is separate from daily life, and I think my role embodies the coming together of both. What we do on a Sunday informs everything else that happens from Monday to Saturday. So, we can't say that we worship this amazing God—as described in the tapestry behind us—when we aren't welcoming to the people, the students, the man or woman outside the West Screen.

NIRMAL PUWAR: You bring a very particular vision to the place, in terms of what you want to achieve, and you presented that to your interview panel. Could you share some of that with us? Do you still remember it?

[00:41:40]

NITANO MULLER: I do [laughs]. When you take on a new job, you always start starry-eyed, and with all sorts of big ideas. I still hold on to those ideas quite passionately. One of the ideas that I had was to develop a pilgrimage that I would invite the city, the diocese, and the visitors to undertake.

The structure of both the old ruins as well as the new Cathedral is such a physical space that you need to take a journey through it. The idea that I pitched to the interview panel in 2023 was the development of a pilgrimage that invites pilgrims into the ruins, into a place of brokenness and fracturedness, and then moves them into the new Cathedral, into a new life, resurrection, new possibilities and of course reconciliation. The building lends itself to that story. It also invites the pilgrims to place themselves into that story. It’s not a retelling of the 14th of November 1940, but it's a retelling of your own story and a reflection on where you are in your own life, in terms of your own brokenness and woundedness. It’s about asking what you need to do, the work you need to undertake, and the people you need to surround yourself with on your journey towards healing and wholeness.

NIRMAL PUWAR: The light is always one of the key elements in this building—the way the concrete and the glass interact with the light and how it interacts with the people in the room. Especially today, it feels bright and calm today. So, when you stand here, you see all the light and the colour, and the ruins, and that must touch you in very particular ways.

NITANO MULLER: Absolutely. It’s such an image to behold because I think we've been so programmed, as human beings, to see life in compartments. We departmentalise everything: our identity, our experiences, who we are. And yet, standing here at the high altar, looking at this amazing influx of light from the sides and through the West Screen, I’m always aware of the fact that there's a brokenness. There’s a history and legacy for me, particularly, standing here as a black South African. I read my experience into the building, and I see that there's always light; there's always hope against a very painful background and a very painful history, one that many people did not survive, sadly. So, standing here is a retelling of that story in a way that gives me the impetus and motivation to continue the work I’ve been called to do.