The community is invited to join Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church in a special historical service on Sunday, May 31. Attendees will see what it was like to be a parishioner in northern England in 1670.
On Sunday, May 31, Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church will explore its Anglican roots by traveling back in time to the year 1670.
At 10:30 a.m., historian and church member Karen Halbersleben will take us back to 1670, to a town in the north of England, giving us a sense of what it would have been like to live then. She will set the stage in terms of people’s fears, concerns, priorities and hopes as they arrived in church 345 years ago.
At 11:00 a.m. vicar Mary Ellen Ashcroft will lead a service as close to what people might have experienced then as possible. Of course if we really wanted to be accurate, the congregation would not have bathed for several months, and the pastor would have a beard! We will use what was then the newly redone 1662 Book of Common Prayer—still the official prayer book for the Church of England. Many words and even some concepts will seem quite foreign to us—a bit like when we hear Act One of a Shakespeare play! She will also point out some differences and themes during the service.
After the service we’ll have treats appropriate to the era, and an opportunity to ask Karen and Mary Ellen questions, and discuss what our time travel experience felt like.
We hope people will see what is transcendent and what is contextual, what is here and now, and what is bigger than that.
All are welcome Sunday, May 31, 10:30 a.m. -1 2:00 p.m. at the historic Maple Hill Church.
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