Peter J. Gomes, minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer professor of Christian Morals, will go to England on a sabbatical next spring to complete work on a book which he has tentatively entitled "A Primer of Primitive Christianity."

Gomes said yesterday he will appoint an acting minister to take over his duties at Memorial Church, but that he has not yet chosen anyone to fill the post.

"This is my first leave in ten years, and I must admit I am looking forward to it," he said.

Gomes will spend the first part of his leave as a fellow at Shrewsbury School in Shropshire County, and the remainder at Cambridge University finishing his book.

Gomes said he would be academically affiliated with the Farmington Institute for Christian Studies at Oxford University, but that he will be staying at Cambridge because of his "social ties" there.

He added that his book will "try to reclaim for the wider public" the issues which were important in the early years of the Christian church, and that he plans to use the book in his course Humanities 12: Formative Elements of the Western Church.

"I have never found a book which I could use without adapting in some way, so I finally decided to make one of my own," Gomes said.

Gomes is also considering using the title of his course for the book, but said he has "been advised that the other one would probably sell more books."