We are a Church of England parish with a strong tradition of music in worship, where all are very welcome. As an ancient Church in the centre of Durham, St Oswald's is a reservoir of peace for all who enter it.

The Sunday Eucharist is at 11:00am, and we have a play and books corner by the font for any younger worshipper who feels a parent or carer would enjoy it there. Evensong is at 6:00pm on Sundays, either in the chancel, or roughly every other week during term time when the usual hymns expand to a full choral setting, in the body of the church. Midweek Holy Communion is at 10:00am on Wednesdays, and the church is usually open from 9:30am till round about 5:00pm (or dusk, if earlier) on weekdays.

Upcoming Services: 

Sunday, 25th October 2026 - Sung Parish Eucharist (Common Worship) at 11:00am, and Choral Evensong (1662 Book of Common Prayer) at 6:00pm

All are very welcome.

***Please note that Daylight Saving Time ends at 2:00am this Sunday, 25th October 2026 - clocks go back by one hour!***

***Please also note that we are currently experiencing an issue with our heating system, so please wrap up warmly when visiting us. Hot water bottles will be available for use in church for those who will be attending our services on Sunday, and anyone who would like to bring their own can have them filled in the Institute before the morning service, or in the vestry before the evening service. We apologize for any inconvenience that this issue may cause.***

Sunday, 25th October 2026 - Ordinary Time: The Last Sunday after Trinity (The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity); Bible Sunday

The Collect of the Day:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Common Worship 

A Reading for Bible Sunday:

All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose.

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, ‘Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.’ And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-6, 8-12, New Revised Standard Version - Anglicized Edition 

A Sonnet for Bible Sunday:

The Lectern 

Some rise on eagles’ wings, this one is plain,
Plain English workmanship in solid oak.
Age gracefully it says, go with the grain.
You walk towards an always open book,
Open as every life to every light,
Open to shade and shadow, day and night,
The changeless witness of your changing pain.
Be still the Lectern says, stand here and read.
Here are your mysteries, your love and fear,
And, running through them all, the slender thread
Of God’s strange grace, red as these ribbons, red
As your own blood when reading reads you here
And pierces joint and marrow… So you stand,
The lectern still beneath your trembling hand.

Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year, Canterbury Press Norwich, 2012

The Post Communion:

Most gracious God, whose Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry with the bread of his life and the word of his kingdom: renew thy people with thy heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us by thy true and living bread; who liveth and reigneth, now and for ever.

Amen.

Common Worship 

A Collect following the Announcement of His Majesty the King's Approval of the Nomination of the Reverend Dr Jitesh Krisnakant Patel, MA, MPhys, PhD, to the Suffragan See of Jarrow, in our Diocese (on Friday, 23rd October 2026):

Almighty God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst give to thy holy Apostles many excellent gifts, and didst charge them to feed thy flock: Give grace, we beseech thee, to all Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, that they may diligently preach thy Word, and duly administer the godly discipline thereof; and grant to the people, that they may obediently follow the same; that all may receive the crown of everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Collect for the Form of Ordaining or Consecrating of an Archbishop or Bishop, The Book of Common Prayer (1662)

We congratulate Jitesh, and keep he and his family in our prayers at this time.

A Prayer for Black History Month (October 2026):

Loving God, 

You have created all things and by your will they have their being.

We rage at a system that teaches and treats black people as if they are not made in the image of God and created equal.

We seek redress for the years of torment and trauma of being othered.

We repent of a system that still demands black people justify their place in every space.

We pray for your liberating kingdom and kin-dom to come on earth as it is in heaven.

The light of the Lord has come, the glory of the Lord is rising.

Lord, shine and arise within us, as we rise, we rise.

Amen.

The Right Reverend Dr Rosemarie Mallett - Bishop of Croydon (Diocese of Southwark), Rage & Hope: 75 Prayers for a Better World (Christian Aid), ed. Chine McDonald and Wendy Lloyd, SPCK Publishing, 2021

Durham Diocesan Prayer Cycle Deanery Intention for the Month:

October 2026: Darlington Deanery

A Prayer of St Oswald of Northumbria:

Let us all kneel, and together beseech the true and living God Almighty in his mercy to defend us from the proud and cruel enemy; for he knows that we have undertaken a just war for the safety of our nation.

Amen. 

(Prayed by King Oswald of Northumbria and his army on the battlefield on the eve of the Battle of Heavenfield)