The service of Lessons and Carols comes to the Episcopal Church from England, where the first such service was held at Truro in Cornwall, in 1880, supposedly to keep men out of the pubs on Christmas Eve. It was designed by Bishop E.W. Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, and held in a temporary wooden structure, as Truro Cathedral was still being built. Decades later, in 1918, Eric Milner-White adapted the service for King’s College in the University of Cambridge, where he was Dean of Chapel. Over the past century, Lessons and Carols has become associated with King’s throughout the world. It was first broadcast on the radio in 1928, and at King’s they are proud to say that since then, ‘with the exception of 1930, it has been broadcast annually, even during the Second World War, when the ancient glass (and also all heat) had been removed from the Chapel and the name of King’s could not be broadcast for security reasons.’ 

We join with churches and cathedrals and chapels throughout the world in offering our own rendition of this beautiful re-telling of the Christmas story, in word and song. 

Choral Evensong may be the most distinctively Anglican of all church services. It took shape in the sixteenth century, when medieval Vespers and Compline were translated into English and combined, in the Book of Common Prayer, to create a new service.  In the 1979 Episcopal prayer book its equivalent is Evening Prayer Rite I.  The choral portions are sung prayer offered by the choir on behalf of the whole congregation.  The congregation join in singing the hymns and in the spoken responses.

Services of the Easter Triduum are on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, as we remember the Last Supper, the Passion and Death of Christ, and the Victory of his Resurrection in the First Eucharist of Easter on Saturday night.

Just before the stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday, the Sacrament is reserved at the Altar of Repose, enabling us to receive it (in the form of Bread only) on Good Friday, a very meaningful practice provided for in the Book of Common Prayer. The Choir helps create the contemplative atmosphere of this beautiful service, which ends in silence and darkness, as some worshippers remain to pray at the Altar of Repose. On Good Friday, we receive the reserved Sacrament consecrated on Maundy Thursday.