A Catholic church is scoring what is thought to be an ecumenical first in being used for services by the congregation of an Anglican cathedral.
From now until August, evensong at the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Derby will take place five minutes walk across the city centre at the Grade II* St Mary’s. The cathedral closed last week for the start of an £800,000 refurbishment.
“Its simply to help them out in a necessity,” said Fr Peter Ingman, assistant priest at St Mary’s. The two churches have already forged close links. Clergy have swapped pulpits, both congregations join in an annual Palm Sunday procession through the city and have co-operated in running a winter night shelter for the homeless.
“There have been a good many exchanges in the past”, said Fr Ingman, “and various events during the year are pretty much fixed in the calendar now.”
The service will be held three evenings a week, and the first, last Thursday, was led by a woman priest, the Rev Dr Elizabeth Thomson, one of the cathedral’s canons.
“I suppose that was quite a significant move forward,” said Fr Ingman. “But it didn’t cause any problems within our community.”
Writing in St Mary’s weekly newsletter, the parish priest, Fr Tim O’Sullivan, said the service was “the evening prayer of the Church observed in most cathedrals and monasteries throughout the Church”.
“With the cathedral, we share a communion of the faithful in that we are all faithful to the teaching of the same Jesus Christ, we practice a communion of charity in that we respect and learn from our differences,” wrote Fr O’Sullivan. “We also have a communion of prayer, so on these occasions we can come together and celebrate our prayers and try to develop more ways of praying and working together.”
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