Saint Anne's, Northampton, celebrate Patronal festival with Archbishop Gabriel
On the 10th of Dec 2011, the parish of St Anne in Northampton welcomed Archbishop Gabriel to their annual patronal festival, in order to ordain James Burns to the Holy Diaconate. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Archbishop Gabriel at 11am on Saturday, attended by 6 priests, Hierodeacon Athanasius from the Cathedral in Paris and two choirs, one from the UK and a childrens choir from Romania, during which James was ordained. The was followed by a parish lunch for 100 people and a vespers. In the evening, the Youth Choir of the Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist was joined by the childrens choir from Maramures in Romania for a candelit evening of hymns and carols in the 1000year old circular Holy Sepulchre church in Northampton. The live concert was recorded and will be published as a CD to raise money for the parish and for the Fellowship choir. In addition a cake and icons sales was held to raise money for the Greek Archdiocese Youth camp whose camp equipment had been recently lost due to arson. On Sunday morning, Archbishop Gabriel and Hierodeacon Athanasius were driven to Clapham by Father Timothy where they celebrated the Liturgy with the parish of Ss Peter and Paul.
The priest in charge, Father Timothy would like to thank all those who contributed to such a beautiful day of worship and song- the flower arrangers, those who sang, those who fed us and those who tidied up afterwards. It was a joy to welcome our beloved Archbishop to our little parish.