Queen Reopens Rebuilt Church

Four years after it was struck by lightning and ravaged by fire, a painstakingly restored wing of the world-famous York Minster, the largest medieval church in Western Europe, was reopened today by Queen Elizabeth II.

At a thanksgiving ceremony attended by 1,500 people, Archbishop of York John Habgood said it was ridiculous to believe God had willed the lightning that sparked the fire in the 13th-Century south transept. “The fact is that we live in a fragile world where disasters can and do happen. God allows them because that is the kind of world he has made.”