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Online Worship
Sundays, 10am Sunday, 24 JANUARY 2021 THE 3rd SUNDAY OF EPIPHANY Old Testament: Genesis 14.17-20 Psalm: 128 Epistle: Revelation 19.6-10 Gospel: John 2.1-11 Download the readings Covid-19 Update - 11 Jan 2021 With regret, we have decided to switch to online worship only on Sundays. Please see below for details of how to join online. The church will remain open for individual prayer on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings (10am-1pm), and for public worship at our normal weekday services. We will also be open on Sundays for prayer from 11.30am to 12.30pm. If visiting us, please observe social distancing, use the sanitiser provided, and wear a face mask if you are not exempted for medical reasons. To join the Sunday service online, click this link from 9.50am onwards for the live stream: https://bit.ly/StMarysKT (You shouldn't need a password, but if asked key in: 5Tw84D) Please mute your microphone once the service starts. To follow the service by phone, call 020 80806591 from 9.50am onwards and, when prompted, key in: Meeting ID: 981 5467 9178 Password: 254560 See Regular services for recordings of recent services. Christmas Comfort & Joy Giving Appeal
Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to our Christmas Appeal. We raised over £3,000, which is magnificent! We used the money to provide gifts for local people who were shielding or isolated, a takeaway festive lunch and gifts for vulnerable people on Christmas Day, and a warm and welcoming, beautifully-decorated church. We were also able to make a substantial donation to the work of the St Anne's Day Centre. Thank you all so much. 
2nd Culture Recovery Fund Grant for St Mary's
We are delighted and thankful to announce that St Mary's has been awarded £53,000 from the Heritage Stimulus Fund to carry out urgent repairs to the east side of the church. This fund, a part of the government's Culture Recovery Fund, is administered by Historic England. St Mary's is one of 68 Anglican churches and cathedrals in England to receive one of its grants, which seek to protect heritage buildings which have lost income because of Covid and also to preserve the livelihoods and skills of the specialist craftspeople who work on them. We will be using the grant to repair the eroded brick and stone work and fix the low roofs and guttering on the side of the church that overlooks St Mary's Place. We're hopeful that, come next Spring, it will no longer rain inside the church! Thank you especially to Historic England, the Church Buildings Council and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. 
Culture Recovery Fund Grant for St Mary's
We're thrilled to announce that the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage has awarded St Mary's £10,900 to plan and design Covid-secure toilet and kitchen facilities and improve accessibility in our beautiful church. This is vital seed-funding, which will help ensure our future viability as a spiritual and cultural resource for everyone in Brighton. We are one of 66 Anglican churches and cathedrals in England to receive one of these grants and we are incredibly grateful for the vote of confidence in the value of the work we do in our community. Thank you especially to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. 
Harvest Thanksgiving
Thank you to everyone for the abundance of foods gifted for our Harvest Thanksgiving Eucharist on 4 October. We were delighted to receive more things than we do in a 'normal' year. Everything is being sorted and will be shared between three local groups who do fabulous work assisting homeless and vulnerable adults: St Anne's Day Centre, Brighton Women's Centre, and the New Steine Mews Hostel. Thank you again for your generosity! 
Welcome to the Reverend Sarah!
Our new Assistant Curate, Sarah Van den driessche, was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Martin at a very happy service at St Mary's on Friday, 25 January. Sarah, who is due to be priested next year, will serve the four years of her curacy with us at St Mary's, participating in all our worship and outreach activities and generally learning the ropes of parish ministry. We couldn't be more delighted to have her as part of our team. In this video, Fr Andrew talks with Sarah about the spiritual journey which has led her to ordination and to us. A Facelift for the Transept Windows
Some 65 years since they were unceremoniously shaved off, the lower transept windows on the west side of the church have their 'eyebrows' (aka hood mouldings) back again. We couldn't be more pleased with the effect! It lifts the whole appearance of the elevation and gives much better definition to the windows, as well as protecting them from the rain. Huge thanks to the Friends of St Mary's for fundraising help to pay for this finishing touch to the repair of this elevation, and also to our long-term funders, the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the National Churches Trust, the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Sussex Historic Churches Trust and the Wolfson Foundation. Thank you too to our architects at Thomas Ford & Partners and the masons from Stone Edge who've done such a lovely job of reinstating the mouldings. The older pictures below show the west elevation in 1954 before the Town Corporation re-modelled the garden; in 1955 after the garden's modernisation (by which time the windows' eyebrows had been shaved off) and the sorry state of things as we were beginning the repairs in May 2016. Foundation Grant from National Churches Trust
Once again, we have the happy obligation of thanking the National Churches Trust - this time for a Foundation Grant of almost £6,000 to help us remove asbestos from our old boiler crypt. This will allow us to access electrics currently out of bounds and also to repurpose the space as a tool store for our proposed community garden. We hope to complete the work by May 2020. Since 2016, the National Churches Trust has awarded St Mary's over £60,000 to help with repairs and improvements. We are so grateful for this support. It's not just the money - though that helps, obviously! - but the Trust's repeated endorsement of our mission to save St Mary's as a living church and make it into a real community asset is a massive boost to our morale. Thank you to everyone at the Trust and to all who donate to its work. We really appreciate it! 
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View of St Mary's interior, taken from scaffolding erected to repair the clerestory windows in the nave gable, April 2015.
The font. Photo by Jean-Luc Brouard.
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