Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. (‘If you seek his monument, look around you.’) The famous epitaph inscribed on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren inside St Paul’s Cathedral never fails to set my nape hairs a-tingle.

But in the eyes of some, a new epitaph has recently been drafted, this time for the centrality of Christianity in British public life. This comes in the form of a contract drawn up between St Paul’s and the notorious nightclub, Fabric, which lost its licence 10 years ago following the drug-related deaths of two teenagers. That was until an intervention by London mayor Sadiq Khan among others overturned the verdict on condition of improved security and surveillance.

The St Paul’s agreement was heralded, not by trumpeting archangels but by Sandra Lynes Timbrell, the cathedral’s ‘director of visitor engagement’. Her announcement anticipated a ‘carefully curated programme of exceptional concerts’ which will ‘showcase world-class talent and create unforgettable experiences for audiences within one of London’s most iconic spaces’. Come friendly bombs and fall, if not on St Paul’s then at least on the entry-level AI that drafted that slice of undifferentiated guff.

Fabric co-founder Cameron Leslie at least had the decency to acknowledge the somewhat eyebrow-hoisting nature of the proposal, as ‘an extraordinary and unexpected coming together of two very different parts of London’. Khan himself has said something similar, praising the deal for ‘bringing together these two institutions [to] create a one-of-a-kind experience, pairing world-class music with one of our most special landmarks’.

One mustn’t despair. St Paul’s famously survived the Blitz, and I dare say it will survive this – although the Blitz was a much smaller nightclub, in Great Queen Street, that lasted less than 18 months. Besides, it seems to have escaped most of X that St Paul’s has already hosted nights in partnership with Fabric before – in 2023 with a techno DJ called Ry Xand 2024 with Patti Smith – and the sky did not fall in.

I must resist the temptation to huff and puff and lament impotently as I did not so long ago in this very column when Canterbury Cathedral decided to create an ‘unforgettable experience for audiences’ by plastering its interior walls with decals in the style of NYC subway graffiti. I now realise that this type of response only encourages them.

And besides, though the Fabric brand is hardly selected to reassure the traditional congregation, it has not yet been established what kind of acts Fabric will be ‘curating’. It might at least turn out to be a curate’s egg – good in parts. Just because Fabric is mainly famous outside of its own devotees for drug deaths and an entire floor that operates as a deep subwoofer, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the Hilliard Ensemble on speed dial.

I mention this vocal quartet, which disbanded in 2014, advisedly. Aside from the Hilliard Ensemble’s independent fame, especially as interpreters of the Medieval and Renaissance liturgical canon, the quartet collaborated to great effect with contemporary voices of various kinds, including the notable 1994 album, Officium, with Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek. I saw them all perform this album live on an unforgettable night in 2009 in an extremely august venue… St Paul’s Cathedral.

It is without a doubt one of the most extraordinary venues I’ve ever heard music in. With Garbarek’s improvised lines responding to the ensemble’s chants across the full width of the available space, the music seemed almost created for that specific occasion. St Paul’s is, I’m sure, capable of replicating that experience, in many possible forms. And perhaps other audiences will leave with, if not a Damascene conversion, at least some of their spiritual pores opened up to further possibilities. I certainly did.

Long before Marshall McLuhan observed that ‘the medium is the message’, the likes of Wren had realised that the architectural space determines the mind’s inner state, regardless of the nature of the sermon. That needn’t be ungodly, even if it isn’t explicitly so dedicated.

So I am a little torn. Does this deal with Fabric merely introduce the wonder of St Paul’s to new audiences? Or is it a desecration of one of the great covered spaces in Christendom? Perhaps the fear is justified. As are the grumblings that Islam would never allow its holy places to be so contaminated.

But until the worst is confirmed, I am determined to remain optimistic. The cathedral costs over £40,000 per day to maintain, and this kind of deal is surely better than seeing it fall into decay. If the management of St Paul’s can get John McLaughlin to host a few nights, and perhaps Peter Gabriel and whoever is the new Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, then I will be sanguine about the odd drift into techno or grime.

Is this a chance to bridge the gap between the secular and sacred in a mutually acceptable way? I think so. That small transubstantiation occurs in us all, to some extent, every time we enter St Paul’s. We register the change, the pressure drop, the sudden quieting of the traffic, the grift and the graft and our own hearts, even while we are making our contactless offering at the till. A chance to dance, even, inside truly great architecture? It could, just possibly, be rather marvellous after all.