Bohdan Mandziuk is a seminarian for the Ukrainian Eparchy of the Holy Family of London, and when war broke out was a student at the Three Holy Hierarchs Seminary on the outskirts of Kyiv. He is now continuing his studies at The International Theological Institute at Trumau, near Vienna.
It was in 1833 that a very sick John Henry Newman wrote aboard a ship in the Straits of Bonifacio his now-famous poem “Lead, Kindly Light”. Facing a high fever, it seemed as though he would not survive and he penned it on what he thought was his deathbed. Despite growing up in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, I had not encountered St John Henry Newman until his beatification by the late Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. I first heard these verses in musical form on the 27 February, 2022, after I had been invited to be part of a recording for BBC Sunday Worship. Since then I have remembered them often, and my love for Newman has grown greatly.
