As announced yesterday, the Scottish Episcopal Church will begin broadcasting weekly Eucharistic services from our media channels from Sunday (22 March) onwards.

The services will be held in private with no congregation, in line with SEC guidelines following government advice to suspend church services as part of the national effort to halt the spread of coronavirus.

The first service, led by the Most Rev Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, will be broadcast from his home, to your home. The service from the tiny Chapel of St Duthac, at the Bishop’s House in Arpafeelie, will be available for all to access on the SEC website from 11am on Sunday.

“This is a difficult time for many of us, and the loss of regular Eucharistic worship has caused pain to many; I know it has for me,” said the Primus, Bishop of Moray, Ross and Cromarty, who is pictured above.

“One of the things that has held us together as a church for centuries has been the continued sharing in the Eucharist. When my small Eucharistic celebration is taking place at home at Arpafeelie, I will know that in addition to the Saints and Angels, I will be joined by many across our Church, and from further afield, as people worship God in their own homes.

“These are worrying times for many, but the comfort of knowing that faithful Christians are worshipping with me this mothering Sunday enabling prayer and praise of God to continue flowing across this land.”

The recorded service will be made available on SEC social media channels, our YouTube channel and at this dedicated page on the website http://www.scotland.anglican.org/broadcast-sunday-worship/

The website page will also contain a downloadable video and audio format of the service, when these are ready.

In advance of the service, the liturgy is available to download here https://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/22-March-2020-Liturgy.pdf.

We encourage people to distribute the video/audio recordings and the Liturgy widely within their own personal networks.  In households with no internet or playback capacity at all, if people are simply given the opportunity to read the words of the Liturgy to themselves close to the appointed time, they will be praising God along with others in the Church.

The service will be available online after its first broadcast, followed by a new one each week, the next at 11am on Sunday 29 March.

Any Church member who is interested in participating in future broadcasts and any Church able to host the filming of a service or prayer meeting should contact the SEC Digital Communications Co-ordinator Aidan Strange at aidans@scotland.anglican.org