US President Donald Trump (in London for NATO’s 70th birthday) should feel at home this Sunday December 8 in Rye’s historic Norman St Mary’s church.
For next Sunday is the Second Sunday of Advent when, according to the Rector’s Notes in the parish magazine, The Pendulum, the link with the clergy and congregation of Christ’s Church, Rye, New York is remembered for the wartime mutual support dating back to the 1940s.
Letters from each church to the other are read out at special services which in New York includes parading the British Union Jack flag and singing “Jerusalem” and the British national anthem.
In St Mary’s the letter from New York is read out and the Star Spangled Banner is sung, but I do not recall seeing the American flag – though there is a memorial flagstone to the US/UK links in the floor by the choir stalls.
St Mary’s therefore has a busy weekend with Saturday’s carols at 5:30pm and the possibility of some fake snow as people leave the church. Real snow is not currently forecast.
Image Credits: Rye News library .