Hundreds expected for Orthodox Easter service at historic Shrewsbury church
Around 400 Orthodox Christians will celebrate Orthodox Easter at an historic town centre Shrewsbury church this coming weekend after outgrowing their existing church a few miles away.
Shrewsbury’s Orthodox community recently moved its regular Sunday worship to St Julian’s Centre on a trial basis after its church in Sutton became too small for its expanding congregation.
The move sees regular Sunday worship return to the privately-owned St Julian’s, off Wyle Cop and Fish Street, one of the oldest Christian foundation churches in Shrewsbury.
The Orthodox Easter service, called Pascha, is held at night, starting this Saturday May 4, from 11.30pm and continuing until the early hours of Sunday. Orthodox Easter and Western Easter often do not correlate because they follow different calendars to calculate Easter.
For 30 years local Orthodox Christians have been worshipping at the Church of the 318 Holy Fathers, a Medieval church in Sutton which they saved from dereliction.
The congregation is 50 per cent British and 50 per cent a mix of other nationalities including Greek, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Serbian, French, Ethiopian, Colombian and more. Last Saturday eight new people were received into the church.
“We have totally outgrown the church. We had been looking at extending the building, but while we’ve been trying to progress those plans the congregation has grown to the point that what we’d planned for wouldn’t be big enough,” said priest Father Panteliemon Maxfield.
“We had been planning for 120 and we’re now frequently getting congregations of 130 people. We were desperate for more space!”
Pascha sees the congregation triple in size. Andrew Wright, who owns St Julian’s and played a key role in helping the Orthodox find the Sutton church, has agreed to allow the community to trial holding Sunday services at St Julian’s. Other smaller Orthodox services continue at Sutton.
“We’re using St Julian’s on a trial basis every Sunday from April through to Advent in the middle of November with the potential of using it long-term. We are very grateful to Andrew who has been a long-standing friend of our parish,” said Father Panteleimon.
“Last year we had 400 people come to Pascha and only 150 could get through the door. The rest were outside. This year, at St Julian’s, they can all get inside. Anyone is welcome to join us.”
A short part of the service takes place outdoors around midnight. Shropshire Council has agreed to close the top of Wyle Cop from 11.45am to 12.15pm to allow this.
Holy Week services, leading up to Pascha, are being held at the Sutton church. The full details of services are available on the Shrewsbury Orthodox Church website https://shrewsburyorthodox.com.
Step-free and wheelchair access to St Julian’s is available via St Julian’s Shut and St Alkmonds Square.
St Julian’s is one of four Saxon foundation churches in the centre of Shrewsbury. The current tower dates from the 12th century while the nave was rebuilt in the early 18th century.
St Julian’s became redundant as an Anglican church in 1976 and has been privately owned since 1980. It was run as a thriving a craft centre until 2001 and since then has been available to Christian groups for worship, conferences and events.
The Sutton church is also believed to be a Saxon foundation church, with the existing building dating from the 13th century. The Greek Orthodox bought it from the Church of England for a few pounds in 1994. It had not been a regularly functioning church for more than 100 years.
