Across
1 Cheer after priest becomes high-ranking churchman (7)
5 God’s chief messenger running a mile around church (7)
9 Average annual rainfall on poet’s ground about right for flowering plant (6,3)
10 Start to transcribe short commemoration of death in apocryphal book (5)
11 Elevated piece of plain writing linked to University (6)
12 Bill includes 50 lire for one canvassing opinion (8)
14 Crass saint upset officers in charge of sacred vessels (10)
16 Sacred heart cut from shrub (4)
18 Samson’s victim sheltered by millionaire (4)
19 14 almost completely distraught over core of animalistic adherents of sensualism (10)
22 Methodist led astray, leaving Wensleydale in error (8)
23 Incense-burner subject to ban, we hear (6)
26 A Lake Poet’s spiritual home on high (5)
27 Awful realities for one of Jacob’s descendants (9)
28 Wise Athenian welcoming a second wise man (7)
29 Buxtehude’s Cantata includes high accompanying line (7)
Down
1 Fashionable beaches invaded by upper-class nuisances (7)
2 Former queen tackling bishop over wrongdoing (5)
3 Sceptical about outrageous costing (8)
4 Age probed by opening of Zola’s book (4)
5 Making passages under houses aroused dorm about 10 am? (10)
6 Oxen Tom let stray (6)
7 Priest’s vestments, a kind turned up inside — something that’s an oppressive burden (9)
8 Eucharistic ritual of Italian gripped by unspecified disease (7)
13 Endlessly express gratitude to Indian, say, following a form of the Christian creed (10)
15 Secluded church finally abandons rickety choirstall (9)
17 They’ll support seven victims of persecution in Ephesus? (8)
18 Lightweight service lacking music and incense (3,4)
20 Satan the tempter repents, remarkably (7)
21 Canticle strangely muted around start of Evensong (2,4)
24 Muslim penning verse for Hindu god (5)
25 Barren area goes up in air attack (4)
Last week’s solution
