Rob GarrattThe significance of the Church to today's rural communities was spelled out by the Archbishop of Canterbury when he visited one of Norfolk's smallest churches.Rob Garratt

The significance of the Church to today's rural communities was spelled out by the Archbishop of Canterbury when he visited one of Norfolk's smallest churches.

The Most Rev Dr Rowan Williams, gave a talk last night at Sharrington's All Saints' Church which will shut its doors for eight months on Monday for important repair work.

Every one of the 114 seats was reserved well in advance - in a church that normally hosts a congregation of around a dozen - with villagers packed into the dimly-lit room eager to hear him.

The invitation-only talk came ahead of the Archbishop's appearance at Norwich Cathedral today when he will be speaking about the relationship between poetry and prayer alongside fellow poet Ruth Padel, great-great granddaughter of Charles Darwin.

The Archbishop used last night's talk to highlight what the rural Church represents in today's modern society.

He said: 'The rural Church is a reminder of what the human experience is like in this place, in this time.

'The community is not just the people who are there at any given moment. Who you are is bound up by far more than you can see and even imagine. History, death, belonging; great truths of humanity which are encoded in this building.'

The Archbishop also took a swipe at the modern preoccupation with online social networking sites like Facebook.

He said: 'There are people who believe their real person is what they concentrate on creating on the internet. There are some really central questions there that we are not considering enough.'

The Archbishop became the sixth, and most eminent, speaker to give the annual Sharrington Lecture which was set up to raise funds for the church. The talks have helped pay for the �100,000 project to replace the church's Victorian ceiling, which will see the church closing on Monday until December, while work is completed.

The Bishop of Norwich, Rt Rev Graham James, opened the talk with a speech in which he joked: 'The eminence of our lecturers has grown every year. We've only got the Pope and President Obama left.'

The Archbishop was invited to Sharrington by villager and former BBC political editor Anne Sloman, a member of the Archbishops' Council which helps shape Church of England policy and the CoE Church Buildings Council which helps parishes look after more than 16,000 local churches.

She said: 'We've had a lot of amazing speakers before, but no one quite like this.

"I've been on the Archbishop's Council for seven years. All the time of it I have been sticking up for rural churches. They're very important and the local community fights to keep them going."

For a full report of the Archbishop's visit to Norwich today, see Monday's EDP.

Tickets for the Archbishop's talk at Norwich Cathedral today, at 10am, are available on the door priced at �5 or �3 for concessions.