Iranian bishop’s crozier restored for posterity

[TEN YEARS AGO the Bishop of Lichfield, Rev Dr Michael Ipgrave, had a special crozier presented to him by the family of the late Bishop of Iran, Dr Hassan Dehqani.

The Reverend Dr Hassan Dehqani-Tafti was the Anglican Bishop of Iran from 1960-90. He was born in 1920 to poor Muslim parents in central Iran and trained to be a teacher at Tehran University before converting to Christianity in 1938.

Hassan came to England in 1947 to train as an Anglican priest, returning to Iran as an ordained priest and in 1977 was made president bishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, a post he held until in 1985.

Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979 there was an assassination attempt, during which his wife Margaret was wounded. Bishop DehqaniTafti went into exile in England and after his son Bahram was assassinated by the Iranian Government in 1980, he moved the family into exile to the Diocese of Winchester. He became the assistant bishop and continued as the Bishop of Iran until his retirement in 1990. He died in 2008 and is buried with his wife in Winchester Cathedral.

When Dehqani-Tafti arrived in Winchester he had no regalia and was given the crozier by a benefactor from Basingstoke. It was made from waste materials, including copper, brass and hardwood, in three sections, each originally joined by a threaded connector.

His family gave the crozier to Bishop Michael when he became Bishop of Woolwich in 2012. After years of service it had fallen into an unusable condition. A steel sleeve had been glued into the wooden shaft at one end and a threaded pin at the other. Both the sleeves were no longer fixed into the shaft, sliding out easily. One of the sleeves had been glued to the threaded pin.

When made, the copper and brass crook, copper foot and connector rings had been lacquered: that had deteriorated after over 40 years. As a result, localised tarnishing and some minor corrosion had occurred to the metal where the lacquer was damaged. The sockets to the wooden shaft where the sleeves were originally fitted had also locally split.

Bishop Michael was very keen for it to be conserved and returned to its former glory. His secretary contracted the Historic Metalwork Conservation Company to arrange for the crozier to be repaired.

The remaining lacquer on the metalwork was carefully removed using a commercial paint stripper, the edges of the wood being masked to prevent damage to the French polish on the wooden shaft. The copper and brass parts were then cleaned and Autochrome metal polish applied using very fine Scotchbrite pads. They were fully repolished using Duraglit wadding, the metal surfaces being buffed up with a soft cloth.

One of the steel sleeves could not be removed from its threaded pin where it had been previously glued on, so a decision was made to carefully cut it off. A replica was made by machining a piece of steel. The splits to the wooden shaft were first repaired using a good quality PVAc adhesive before the two steel sleeves were fixed back into the shaft sections using a structural epoxy resin adhesive. Slots were cut into the length of the steel sleeves to help lock them into the wood. That allowed for the crozier to be correctly assembled once more and returned to its original strength.

Remaining small areas of wood loss and other large dents in the wood of the shaft were filled using a white acrylic filler. The wooden surface of the three shaft sections was lightly abraded back using Scotchbrite pads before they were refinished with two coats of a black French polish applied by brushing. The polished copper and brass parts were protected with two coats of Ercalene ‘A’ brass lacquer – a clear acrylic coating.

Bishop Michael Ipgrave has decided that on his retirement he will give the refurbished crozier to the late Bishop Deqhani-Tafti’s daughter, Guli Francis-Dehqani, who was appointed as Bishop of Chelmsford last year. She is seen holding the crozier (above) at her installation as Bishop of Loughborough in 2017. q