By TREVOR GRUNDY c. 2011 Religion News Service CANTERBURY, England (RNS) Nearly a millennium ago, four unruly knights crossed the English Channel from France and confronted the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, over his feud with King Henry II. Before the knights smashed the future saint’s skull in front of monks at an altar inside…

LONDON (RNS) A British former soldier has been jailed for burning a copy of the Quran in front of shoppers in England — an act the judge described as “theatrical bigotry.” Andrew Ryan was sentenced to 70 days for setting fire to the Islamic holy book on Jan. 19 in Carlisle with a cigarette lighter…

LONDON (RNS) Researchers at two of Britain’s top universities claim that church attendance in many Western nations is falling because people are living longer and therefore have less fear of death. The result, the studies say, is a “graying church.” In Britain, one in four older adults (65 or older) attends church, while just 11…

CANTERBURY, England (RNS/ENInews) A self-effacing multimillionaire has become a local hero after buying a series of 17th-century religious paintings and then donating them back to the Church of England in a bid to help boost art tourism. Jonathan Ruffer, 59, paid 15 million pounds (about $21.3 million) for a series of paintings of the biblical…

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