Occurring
for 1 hour
All Saints’ Day, is the day we remember all the saints and martyrs of the church, both known and unknown.
When I was a child, we worshipped each Sunday at St Albans Abbey, the church of the first British martyr. At the front of the nave above the altar was a stone rood screen, built by Abbot Thomas de la Mare, around the time of the Black Death (1349-51). It contained seven empty niches, where brightly coloured statues had once stood. But the statues were destroyed during the Reformation, and the niches left empty.
Today they are again filled with freshly coloured statues, commissioned by the Abbey from sculptor Rory Young. They depict seven martyrs, each carrying the martyr’s symbol of the palm branch. From left to right:
➡️Oscar Romero – Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, who stood up for the poor, assassinated during Mass in 1980
➡️St Alban Roe – imprisoned for a time in St Albans Abbey Gatehouse and hanged in London in 1642, having been found guilty of treason for being a Roman Catholic priest
➡️St Amphibalus – a Christian priest sheltered by St Alban, when Christianity was forbidden
➡️St Alban – The first British saint, beheaded in Roman Verulamium on the site of the Abbey in the third century AD
➡️George Tankerfield - burnt to death in 1555, in Romeland, an alley in St Albans, because as a Protestant, he refused the doctrine of transubstantiation
➡️St Elisabeth Romanova – a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and member of the Russian Royal Family and the Orthodox Church, becoming a nun and Abbess after her husband died. She was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918
➡️Dietrich Bonhoeffer– Lutheran pastor and theologian, sent to a Nazi concentration camp, and tried with neither witness nor defence. He was hung in April 1945.
These are the sort of people we remember on All Saints' Day. The Dean of the Cathedral writes that there are “martyrs in every age – probably more now than there have been for many years – and inspire us to be braver ourselves in standing up for what we believe.”
Click below to hear a hymn for All Saints Day.
When I was a child, we worshipped each Sunday at St Albans Abbey, the church of the first British martyr. At the front of the nave above the altar was a stone rood screen, built by Abbot Thomas de la Mare, around the time of the Black Death (1349-51). It contained seven empty niches, where brightly coloured statues had once stood. But the statues were destroyed during the Reformation, and the niches left empty.
Today they are again filled with freshly coloured statues, commissioned by the Abbey from sculptor Rory Young. They depict seven martyrs, each carrying the martyr’s symbol of the palm branch. From left to right:
➡️Oscar Romero – Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, who stood up for the poor, assassinated during Mass in 1980
➡️St Alban Roe – imprisoned for a time in St Albans Abbey Gatehouse and hanged in London in 1642, having been found guilty of treason for being a Roman Catholic priest
➡️St Amphibalus – a Christian priest sheltered by St Alban, when Christianity was forbidden
➡️St Alban – The first British saint, beheaded in Roman Verulamium on the site of the Abbey in the third century AD
➡️George Tankerfield - burnt to death in 1555, in Romeland, an alley in St Albans, because as a Protestant, he refused the doctrine of transubstantiation
➡️St Elisabeth Romanova – a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and member of the Russian Royal Family and the Orthodox Church, becoming a nun and Abbess after her husband died. She was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918
➡️Dietrich Bonhoeffer– Lutheran pastor and theologian, sent to a Nazi concentration camp, and tried with neither witness nor defence. He was hung in April 1945.
These are the sort of people we remember on All Saints' Day. The Dean of the Cathedral writes that there are “martyrs in every age – probably more now than there have been for many years – and inspire us to be braver ourselves in standing up for what we believe.”
Click below to hear a hymn for All Saints Day.
Sunday 3rd November, 11:30am Holy Eucharist for All Saints Day
3 Nov 2024, 11:30 a.m. for 1 hour
Sunday 3rd November, 11:30am Holy Eucharist for All Saints Day
3 Nov 2024, 11:30 a.m. for 1 hour