The Bishop of Edinburgh was at St Michael and All Saints Church in Brougham Street, Tollcross, whose Rector, the Very Reverend Kevin Pearson, is also Dean of the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh.
St Michael and All Saints Church is considered the most Anglo-Catholic, or High, of the Scottish Episcopal churches in Edinburgh and its Oxford Movement seven steps up to the altar and seven candles bears testament. Built originally in 1866 as All Saints Church, it was designed by the Edinburgh architect, Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. The congregation merged with St Michael, Hill Square, in 1965.
It was Sunday morning High Mass but altered to fit in a Service of Confirmation by the Bishop of a member of the congregation entering fully into the Church. Before laying his hands on the confirmation candidate the Bishop preached from the pulpit on the Ascension which had been celebrated on Thursday. He used as his theme the earlier readings from the lectern of passages from Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostle, reminding us that Luke wrote both.
The organist, Neil Beynon, had played Henry G Ley’s Prelude on Down Ampney and Sir George Thalben-Ball’s Elegy to WD before the service began. As we left his voluntary was Buxtehude’s Komm, heileger Geist, Herre Gott.
The choir of ten voices admirably conducted sung the Kyrie, Sanctus & Benedictus and Agnus Dei to the lovely setting by the Spanish counter-reformation composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611).
The congregation sang some favourite hymns, Come down, O love Divine. then for the offertory O God of Bethel, during the receiving of communion, The King of love my Shepherd is, and as the recessional, O Jesus I have promised.
The Right Reverend Brian Smith became the 25th Bishop of Edinburgh in June 2001 having previously been Suffragan Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He succeeded Richard Holloway. The Bishop was born and at school and university in Edinburgh before studying at Cambridge. His early ministry was in the Diocese of Oxford and in West Yorkshire. He has over fifty parishes under his care, half of which are within Edinburgh, the others from Falkirk to the English border.
As Dean of the Diocese of Edinburgh, the Very Reverend Kevin Pearson is the senior clergyman who has the role somewhat similar to an Archdeacon in the Church of England. He assists the Bishop in the administration of the Diocese. The Cathedral in Palmerston Place is run by the Provost.
Event: Sunday 16 May 2010 11 am.