Bread and wine have long been seen as a pretty decent pairing - not least since this coupling was cemented when it was put to good use at a certain dinner table some 2,000 years ago.

But the biblical significance of this classic bakery and booze combo has escaped one church and its parishioners in London, who are attempting to block the opening of a bakery that sells wine.

London’s Evening Standard reported this week that the Roman Catholic St Anselm and St Cecilia church is trying to block entrepreneur Jonathan Dalton from opening a nearby artisan bakery in Holborn, called the Fleet River Bakery, amid fears its plan to also sell alcohol would lead to "revelry".

They have hired a lawyer to fight the application and parish priest Father David Barnes was said to have met the alcohol licence application with "anxiety" and "horror".

Dalton, whose business would join the likes of bakery-restaurant St John’s Bread & Wine and Italian bakery Rocco Princi in offering alcohol in the capital, has already had one licence turned down in January and is planning to petition Camden Council over the issue.

He is reported to have said: "It has been an absolute nightmare. I want to bring back artisan baking to central London and serve the odd glass of wine or organic cider. Unfortunately the church ... sees alcohol as being evil. But there is a pub two metres from the front door of their annex, and they don’t object to that. We are not looking to be a late-night bar."

What next? A church objecting to the opening of a carpenter’s perhaps?