Chatham church combines metal with Christianity

The church's metal bible includes readings from high-profile band members

A group of friends have started a church aimed at bringing the Christian faith to fans of metal.

The church meets at the Tap N Tin in Chatham, Kent, and uses metal bibles, with writings from members of bands including Iron Maiden, Korn and Megadeth.

Fire and Blood was the brainchild of George Papachristodoulou.

"I was exploring metal and the Christian faith and how they can work together," he said.

"I think that God placed me in the area to start a metal community based on the Christian faith.

"Everything the metal culture stands for is very close to the Christian ethos", Mr Papachristodoulou said.

Fire and Blood's founders say the church provides a safe space for like-minded individuals

The group say there has been a longstanding misconception about metal being incompatible with faith.

Rob Byrne, a second-year ordinand in the Church of England who helps run the group, said: "If you encounter music that you feel, for whatever reason, is leading you away from God, then I'd discourage that person from listening to it.

"But that's always going to be a personal thing and and I can very easily find a lot of that in pop music rather than heavy metal specifically so I think it's not a genre-specific thing."

Fire and Blood was started by three friends, who all share a love of metal

Mr Papachristodoulou said: "I could listen to everything as long as it's not satanic.

"I understand that for a big number of the bands it's just marketing. It's show, it sells."

The church's sessions include listening to music, informal chat and themed discussions.

"I've met a lot of people over the years who've said 'Oh yeah I used to listen to that before I was a Christian but then I burnt all my records', but at the end of the day it's music," Roger Kiralfy, another of the group's leaders, said.

"Now I can understand if the lyrical content is anti-Christian or even satanic, especially satanic, but music is music."

'Interesting conversations'

However, not everyone has been welcoming to the group.

"We were expecting to have issues with Christians judging us", Mr Papachristodoulou said, but "the atheists were the ones that tried to fault us more.

"We've had some quite interesting conversations on Facebook."

The church's members say Fire and Blood provides a safe space for like-minded individuals.

Mr Kiralfy said: "This is really my opportunity to talk to people with similar tastes to me, maybe the same sort of attitudes.

"It's somewhere I can be myself."

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