Over the last several years, the Eth Cepher has made several presentations in the village of Lutterworth, England, the home of John Wycliffe, the first translator of the Bible into the English language. We have worked closely with a local ministry called Eatin’ Wild Honey and Locusts, who have been resident in the Lutterworth area since their founding.
In 2025, the Wycliffe Museum carefully considered the Eth Cepher and upon the affirmative vote of the Curators, many of whom also held seats on the local Counsel, approved the Eth Cepher for a presentation within the Museum.
Curator Tony Hirons was kind enough to join our presentation with a tour of St. Mary’s church, the site of Wycliffe’s work in the village of Lutterworth. Briefly, we learned that Wycliffe was at one time the head of a college at Oxford in the mid-1300s. He developed a curriculum in theology, and he came to conclude two things: that the Bible should be available in the English language for English speaking people, and that the Roman church was wrong about the doctrine of transubstantiation. His outspokenness about the doctrine of transubstantiation (the doctrine that the eucharist and the cup become the actual flesh and blood of the Messiah during the mass) would cause a stir among the Bishops of the Black Friar Abby in London who would attempt a sanction. However, being supported by John of Ghent and thirty-two armed men caused them to adjourn.
Wycliffe would later be asked by the king to attend a gathering in Bruge, Belgium, where he would also speak out against the doctrine of transubstantiation. This time the Black Friar Abby succeeded in having Wycliffe removed from his post at Oxford and banished to a small church in a backwater village called Lutterworth.
However, St. Mary’s church held an unusual status under the common law of Great Britain, being a “royal peculiar” church under the sole jurisdiction of the king and outside the control of any diocese of the Roman church. As a result of this relocation, Wycliffe was able to work without interference on translating the Latin Vulgate into the English language. He survived one stroke during this period as he lead the parish at St. Mary’s, and worked even more diligently. Ultimately, however, he would suffer a second stroke in the church, apparently during the service, as the parishioners would carry him home from the church still sitting in his chair. He would die three days later and would be buried in the crypt in the center of St. Mary’s church.
This was not the end of the story, however, as the Roman church would try him posthumously, and convict him on 327 counts of heresy. They would thereafter come to the church and exhume his body, burn his bones, and scatter the ashes in the Avon River which abuts the village of Lutterworth. His ashes would go downstream and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean and then around the world.
It was the work of John Wycliffe which was completed in the 1380s – some 150 years before Henry VIII and his protestant division from the Roman church – that set the spark to the reformation that would follow.
It was in this spirit that the curators invited Cepher Publishing Group, LLC to present our history alongside the Wycliffe display at the Wycliffe Museum in November 8-9, 2025, and at St. Mary’s church, where Dr. Pidgeon was able to present briefly our history and our fundamental tenets of our editing process, namely, transliteration, inclusion, and harmonization. We were able to celebrate with many people from the village of Lutterworth and surrounds, including Lilbourn, Rugby, Kettering, and even London, and we were joined with friends from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and the United States.
Cepher Publishing Group, LLC remains greatly honored by this invitation and our acceptance in the village of Lutterworth. It is our great privilege to stand beside the courage of John Wycliffe in the tradition of bringing the sacred scriptures into an understandable language to people around the world.