Guild of St Raphael

The Guild of St Raphael, founded in 1915, was a Christian organisation dedicated to promoting, supporting and practicing Christ's ministry of healing as an integral part of the life and worship of the Church.

The Guild stated it was: "the Anglican means of teaching the arts and sciences of the ministry of healing by prayer, sacraments and by full co-operation with the medical profession".

Recent minutes (published in Chrism, 2006) show that the driving personalities behind the foundation of the Guild in 1915 were a Miss Caroline Biggs, recorded as Secretary of the newly formed Guild, with the Reverend Canon R. P. Roseveare of St Paul's Deptford, recorded as its first Warden.

The Guild looks too for the healing of communities and of God's creation itself - taking into account those many social and political factors which cause 'dis-ease' in our broken and divided world.

Henry Cooper, Chaplain to the Guild, argued that successful exorcists are people who know something about psychiatry and work well with doctors.

In this and in all its activities the Guild has always stood for the closest co-operation with members of the medical profession and others engaged in the work of healing.