Ring your bells for Easter

Friday 10 April 2020

With Easter being marked differently this year, churches across the Bailiwick are offering services online throughout the holy weekend, and want to hear homes ringing their own bells on Sunday.

The Dean of Guernsey said he has taken guidance from a national directive and hopes churchgoers will follow and join in with efforts make Easter as special as it always is.

Speaking on behalf of the Anglican churches in the Bailiwick, the Very Reverend Tim Barker said he is supporting a proposal by the clergy of the Deanery of Jersey to ensure bells can be heard across the Channel Islands.

As all of the churches are currently closed, with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asking all clergy to remain at home wherever possible services will be streamed online, as they have been for the last few weeks. That means that bell ringers also have to stay home.

The Jersey deanery clergy agreed, at an online meeting earlier this week, to instead encourage other means of ‘tolling bells’ this week.

Pictured: Guernsey's Town Church. 

The churches then said they "invite people throughout the Channel Islands, to ring any bells that they may have in their homes, or play the sound of bells through a PA system, phone or hand held electronic device, from their gardens or driveways or out of the windows of their houses, at 10:00 on Easter Sunday, as a means of celebrating the great festival of Easter."

The Deans of Guernsey and Jersey together said: "Although, for the time being, we cannot use our wonderful buildings or stream services from within them, congregations and clergy across the Channel Islands are using the internet in really creative ways to stream and record services and we look forward to people “joining” us on Easter Day. Please also ring or broadcast your bells from your homes, drives, gardens and balconies, at 10 am on Easter Day to celebrate this great festival."

For details of mass times click HERE. 

Pictured: Our Lady Star of the Sea, Catholic Church at Delancey. 

The Catholic Church in Guernsey is also streaming services online throughout the holy weekend, as clergy and their congregations stay at home.

The Diocese and the Vatican have given instructions to parish priests on how to offer worship during the lockdown, and have said "the faithful are no longer under the Sunday obligation to attend Mass. This also includes Easter duties.

"The faithful should find time to pray together and where possible to make spiritual communion."

For details of mass times click HERE. 

Pictured top: St Sampson's Parish Church.