Mark [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION I was sitting with the then Archbishop of Canterbury in the httle Mermaid Theatre on the bank of the Thames. Curiosity had taken us both to see a unique phenomenon on a London stage. There were no costumes, no scenery and no 'props', except for a small table and chair. A cast of one, by name Alec McGowan, was simply reciting from memory an ancient piece of literature. Yet he held the attention of the packed audience for over two hours. So successful was the performance that it was transferred to a large theatre in the West End, where it ran for months. As a boy, Alec's grandfather had made him kneel on the carpet, laid hands on his head, and predicted that one day he would 'take the gospel to thousands of people'. But he had become an actor, not a preacher. Now the prophecy was being fulfilled in an unexpected way — for he was narrating a book in the Bible, the Gospel of Mark, written by the man whose mortal remains were brought from Egypt to lie in the Cathedral of St Mark in Venice. It is an extraordinary story. An unknown young man of thirty abandons his job in the building trade and launches into