The 2020–21 Saint Mark's Music contains a variety of offerings, from beloved annual traditions to encounters with the unfamiliar. You can read the series announcement email here. This year, all the event on the Music Series will be livestreamed and viewable for free.

Details of the complete series may be found on the Music Series page here. 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2020, 7:30 P.M.,
Flentrop Organ Concert with Canon Kleinschmidt

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2020, 7:30 P.M.,
Native American Flute Songs with Gary Stroutsos

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2021, 7:30 P.M.,
Fritts Organ Concert with John Stuntebeck

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2021, 7:30 P.M,
Concert à 3: with Jillon Dupree, Rebekah Gilmore, & Page Smith

PALM SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 2021, 4:30 P.M.,
Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time

FRIDAY, MAY 14, 2021, 7:30 P.M.,
All-Bach on the Flentrop Organ with Alex Weimann

On Wednesday, September 8, an email message was sent to the cathedral community with information concerning the eventual reopening of the cathedral building and resumption of in-person worship. Dean Thomason announced over four months ago, in May, that "we will not be among the first churches to reopen." As of now, there is no date set to reopen. But a committee of staff and volunteers has worked hard to think through what it will look like when the cathedral's doors do eventually open, and to create policies and procedures to keep everyone as safe as possible during this ongoing crisis.

The work of that committee may be seen on the "Reopening Planning" page here. At this time, the page contains the complete Reopening Plan document downloadable as a pdf, a summary version of the policies and procedures, as well as some Frequently Asked Questions. The Reopening Planning webpage will be continually updated as the situation develops. When the date for the resumption of in-person worship is set, further information including a link to register online to attend a Sunday service will appear there.

EVERY TUESDAY, 11:30 A.M.–1:30 P.M., currently meeting via Zoom, although a return to in-person meetings is under consideration

Tuesday Bible Study provides a weekly conversation around the scripture readings for the following Sunday. It has recently re-launched using the Zoom platform. Each week a discussion is facilitated and lively conversation ensues as people share their thoughts about the lessons.

The group meets from 11:30–12 p.m. for social time and 12–1:30 p.m. for study and prayer over the lectionary readings for the coming Sunday.

SAINT MARK’S CATHEDRAL CALLS FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT AT 75th ANNIVERSARY OF BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI

This August marks the 75th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima, on August 6, and Nagasaki, on August 9, 1945. As the world community remembers and addresses the ongoing threat of nuclear aggression, the Vestry of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral Parish in Seattle has released a resolution “calling upon U.S. policymakers to determine a timely process for the dismantling of existing U.S. nuclear weapons while urging other countries to do likewise, and urging the President and Congress to explore a moratorium on production of new nuclear arms.”

In solidarity with so many churches and faith-based organizations, Saint Mark’s Cathedral has taken a stand against unjust wars and nuclear weapons going back decades. Dean & Rector The Very Rev. John Leffler repeatedly denounced the Vietnam War from the pulpit in the 1960s, and his successor, The Very Rev. Cabell Tennis, notoriously spoke out against the bombing of Cambodia in a televised sermon on Christmas Eve, 1972. In the subsequent decades, the cathedral has continued to use its voice on these issues, partnering with groups such as the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition (WANW).

Nuclear disarmament is a particularly significant concern in the Pacific Northwest, since the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S. is just 20 miles away at Naval Base Kitsap. Washington State’s Hanford Site, which produced the plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, continues to store millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste in unsafe conditions, leaking contaminated material into the environment to this day—an enduring consequence of the country's nuclear weapons program.

Betsy Bell of Saint Mark’s Cathedral, who leads the Nuclear Disarmament Ministry, said, “To the majority of people alive in 2020, both WWII and the Cold War seem like history far in the past, and so it is a shock to realize that the United State continues to build and stockpile nuclear weapons at such a vast scale, and even more shocking in light of how invisible the subject has become in our national discourse. The mere existence of these weapons today is an atrocity!”

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UPDATE 8/18: With the return of a Sunday Morning service of Holy Eucharist on August 23, the cathedral's experiment with Morning Prayer has concluded. Eucharist will be continue to be offered every Sunday as we enter the fall season. Please reach out to the cathedral or to Dean Thomason directly and let us know what your experience of this liturgy was like.

For a period of time this summer, Saint Mark's Cathedral will adapt the rhythms of its Sunday Morning livestreamed liturgy. On July 19 and 26, the cathedral will offer a service of Morning Prayer instead of Holy Eucharist, harking back to the standard practices of the Church until the last generation. A service of Holy Eucharist will return August 2, followed by Morning Prayer again on August 9 and 16.

This pattern or services, with Eucharist only once a month, and morning prayer at other times, was the normal practice at churches of the Anglican tradition until the liturgical reforms of the mid-to-late 20th century. Morning Prayer, or Matins, is part of the cycle of prayer services contained in the Book of Common Prayer collectively known as "The Daily Office," which in the current prayer book includes Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer (called "Evensong" when sung), and Compline.

Writing at the dawn of the current global pandemic, The Most Rev Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church, wrote:

Many factors contributed to a general decline in the celebration of the Eucharist well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Morning Prayer became the common service of worship on the Lord’s Day. And while it is good and right that the situation has changed dramatically, that the Holy Eucharist has again become the principal act of worship on Sunday across our church, few would suggest that the experience of Morning Prayer somehow limited God’s presence and love to generations of Anglican Christians. [...]

 

While not exclusively the case, online worship may be better suited to ways of praying represented by the forms of the Daily Office than by the physical and material dimensions required by the Eucharist. And under our present circumstances, in making greater use of the Office there may be an opportunity to recover aspects of our tradition that point to the sacramentality of the scriptures, the efficacy of prayer itself, the holiness of the household as the “domestic church,” and the reassurance that the baptized are already and forever marked as Christ’s own.

For a few weeks this summer, Saint Mark's will be taking up the Presiding Bishop's invitation. Please write to info@saintmarks.org or contact any of the clergy and let us know what you think of this experiment.