The buildings may have been closed but the church was very much open during Holy Week, with thousands tuning in to the various broadcasts of online worship made available through the Scottish Episcopal Church website.

During Holy Week, a range of broadcasts was available on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. We are pleased to report that these attracted 16,500 views across various platforms, with website traffic doubling year-on-year. This uplift applies to many areas of the website, including our online daily resources.

In addition to this, almost one-third of Scottish Episcopal churches have been offering their own form of online worship to their congregation and beyond since the coronavirus pandemic required the closure of places of worship until further notice.

It was encouraging to see that BBC Scotland News picked up on this growth of online worship, focusing on the success at St Paul’s and St George’s in Edinburgh. You can read their story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52262025

Not every church is able to provide online worship, and nor is there an expectation that everyone should try. The provincial website offering, led by the College of Bishops, is designed to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to follow a service of worship at least once a week, on a Sunday.

Provincial worship returns on Sunday (19 April) at 11am, led by the Rt Rev Anne Dyer, Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney. Full details plus links to where the broadcast can be found will be published on the SEC website on Friday.