Welcome to Coventry’s new Cathedral. Its existence, and the reputation of Coventry as a city of Peace and Reconciliation, is largely due to one man. 

We have already seen how, on the night of 14 November 1940, the boss of the Cathedral Provost Richard Howard together with three others, fought and failed to put out the fires destroying first the roof and then the whole interior of the Cathedral. 

As he watched his cathedral burning down during that long terrible night, Coventry Cathedral became for him the living embodiment of the tremendous truth that, in an amazing and miraculous way, all crucifixions in human experience can, like that of Jesus Christ, issue in resurrection.

On the morning after the destruction, as he went into the ruined Cathedral, there flashed into his mind the deep certainty that, just as the Cathedral had been crucified with Christ, so it would rise again with Him. How or when, Howard could not tell; nor did it matter. He was certain the Cathedral would rise again. 

And so began the long process that eventually led to the consecration of this extraordinary new cathedral 22 years later in 1962.