The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, has said that Christians must take back their place in the public square and that places such as hospitals need to rediscover their Christian roots.

His comments come after Christian nurse Caroline Petrie was dismissed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust for offering to pray for her patients only to be reinstated.

Bishop Nazir-Ali, writing in a Sunday newspaper column, said that it was ironic that a country which developed the Christian tradition of nursing, should suspend a nurse who offered to pray for a patient.

The bishop also expressed his concern that other people could be vulnerable to the kind of action that Petrie faced.

“Of all professionals, nursing is one that is firmly rooted in the Christian tradition,” he wrote.

“It arose first in the religious orders and although it began to become secularised after the Reformation, its Christian foundations were re-discovered by people like Florence Nightingale, the founder, in many ways, of modern nursing.”

In his column he said that there was evidence that prayers and spiritual belief could have a positive impact on patients.

He added that political correctness was restricting the role that chaplains could play during times of emergency and bereavement, and that Christianity alone was the subject of such treatment.

“A place for Christians in the public square must be reclaimed," he wrote.

“It is time for a movement of Christians that will put the Christian case vigorously in public debate, that will remind the nation of its Christian heritage.”