wfn.org | Episcopalians: Anglicans join in worldwide commemorations of terrorist attacks

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September 12, 2002

2002-211

Episcopalians:	Anglicans join in worldwide commemorations of 
terrorist attacks

by Jan Nunley

(ENS) Messages of peace and exhortations to patriotism vied for 
attention at September 11 commemorations in Episcopal churches 
across the country and Anglican congregations across the world.

Many congregations marked the first anniversary of the terrorist 
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the 
hijacking of four U.S. airliners with candlelight vigils, the 
tolling of bells and reading of the names for each of the more 
than 3,000 victims. Some participated in a "rolling requiem" 
presentation of Mozart's classic work in 20 of the world's 25 
time zones, which began at the International Dateline in 
Auckland, New Zealand, and terminated in American Samoa in the 
Pacific. Others watched video documentaries about the ministry 
of St. Paul's Chapel near Ground Zero in New York. Still others 
joined members of other denominations and faiths for interfaith 
gatherings that featured readings from the Bible, the Qur'an, 
and other sacred works.

More than 3,000 white rose petals fluttered from the dome of St. 
Paul's Cathedral in London to symbolize each of the victims of 
the attacks, including a former St. Paul's head choirboy who 
perished at the World Trade Center that day. A British Union 
Jack recovered from Ground Zero draped the altar. Prince Charles 
joined his son Prince Harry and British prime minister Tony 
Blair as a New York police officer lit a solitary candle.

'They didn't break us'

At the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., archbishop 
emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa praised the U.S. for the 
"extraordinary courage and selflessness demonstrated at Ground 
Zero, the Pentagon, and elsewhere, even on the doomed flights." 

But Tutu also warned a congregation that included Attorney 
General John Ashcroft that "the war against terrorism cannot be 
won unless the war against poverty, against disease, against 
ignorance is won--all those things that can make people 
desperate." Ashcroft was also among those who read the names of 
the dead aloud during a day-long ritual.

At the "Church of the Presidents," St. John's in Lafayette 
Square, former White House communications aide Karen Hughes, 
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Kathleen Card, 
wife of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, served as 
lectors. St. John's rector, the Rev. Luis Leon, told the 
congregation that while the attacks were horrendous they "didn't 
break us." The sermon, which included prayers for his 
leadership, appeared to move President George W. Bush to tears.

Faded flag

In Boston, where both of the doomed Trade Center-bound flights 
originated, a rabbi and an imam shared a hymnal at the Cathedral 
Church of St. Paul to sing "America." At Trinity Church in 
Copley Square, 1400 worshipers were called to prayer by the 
chanting of a muezzin, the blowing of a shofar, and a group of 
trumpeters playing "Taps." 

A flag presented to the widow of a World War II veteran, 
displayed since the Sunday after the attacks on the front porch 
of the rectory at Grace Episcopal Church in Old Saybrook, 
Connecticut, was officially retired by a color guard of police 
and firefighters. Its red, white and blue have faded to "pink, 
gray and lavender," according to the parish's rector, the Rev. 
Charles Hoffman.

What are thought to be the oldest bells on the North American 
continent--1,187 years old--were sounded at St. Stephen's in 
East Haddam, Connecticut, at the moments when airplanes flew 
into both Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania 
field, and at the moments when each of the towers collapsed.

Rebuilding, not retribution

At St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida, those 
attending morning and evening services were marked on their 
foreheads with ashen crosses--a practice normally reserved for 
Ash Wednesday, at the start of Lent. At Christ Episcopal Church 
in Ponte Vedra Beach, the Ground Zero documentary prompted the 
Rev. Rick Westbury, associate rector, to remark, "[St. Paul's 
Chapel] became almost like a spiritual MASH unit. To me, it was 
a microcosm of what the church ought to be today."

In St. Petersburg, Florida, volunteers kneeling in front of the 
altar at the Cathedral Church of St. Peter read the name of each 
of the 3,025 victims of the attacks. The reading took more than 
seven hours, as the darkened sanctuary was open all day to the 
public. Reading the list was important, said volunteer Lynn 
Webb. "People need to be remembered with more than a number," 
she said. "It's important to say their names and to remember 
them individually."

At a memorial service that followed, Bishop John B. Lipscomb of 
Southwest Florida preached at the same pulpit on the same topic 
as he did exactly one year ago. His message was also similar: 
The nation must focus on rebuilding, not retribution.  

"This nation must first seek to be a peace-building nation and a 
reconciler of peoples rather than the purveyor of destruction. 
We worry about a nation that may have weapons of mass 
destruction and yet we are one of those nations. We worry about 
what they may do with them; we are the only nation that has ever 
used them. 

"I wonder if it is time for us to confess our sins; to seek the 
world's forgiveness in a spirit of reconciliation that will that 
mean those who died on September 11 truly will not have died in 
vain."

God 'always comes back to us'

In Dallas, students at the Episcopal School of Dallas heard the 
story of Mitch, a Golden Retriever dog that served a blind man 
named John who worked on the south tower of the World Trade 
Center from the Rev. K. Michael Harmuth, a former FBI chaplain 
who worked at Ground Zero. "Every day Mitch led John from their 
home to elevator three of the World Trace Center and then up to 
the 74th floor," said Harmuth at memorial services in All Saints 
Chapel. "On the day the plane hit the 79th floor of the South 
Tower, John and Mitch were already at work. Because he couldn't 
see, John felt he had no chance to escape. But he didn't want 
Mitch to die, too, so John threw him into the mass of humanity 
streaming down the corridor to the stairs. For awhile Mitch was 
trapped by the mass of people and could not reverse direction.

"But he eventually fought and clawed his way back up the 
corridor to find his master John. He went up to John and nudged 
him. Together--and with the help of another wonderful person who 
came to their rescue--they made it out in time. John was saved.

"When I think of this incident, I think of God. God is like 
Mitch the Golden Retriever. No matter how hard we try to shove 
him away, he always comes back to us."

Harmuth brought back a piece of the one of fallen WTC towers and 
placed it next to a memorial from the Holocaust on the Episcopal 
School of Dallas campus. "We need these symbols to help us 
remember how badly human beings treated each other in the 20th 
century and how badly they treated us other in the 21st 
century," Harmuth said. "When it comes to evil, nothing ever 
changes." 

'Do not be distracted by the drums of war'

With prayer, a tolling bell, ranks of votive candles and the 
reading of the names of the dead, St. James Cathedral in Chicago 
began a day of remembrance and hope in observance of the 
September 11th attacks. Cathedral members and diocesan staff 
were joined by office workers in nearby high rises as they lit 
votive candles arrayed on the terrace of the Episcopal Church 
Center plaza, and signed commemorative books. In his sermon at 
the noon Requiem Eucharist, Bishop William Persell urged the 
community to concentrate on reconciliation, peace and hope.

"Our focus must not be on war and revenge," said Persell, "but 
on reconciliation among all nations and peoples." The 
cathedral's gift of hospitality this day is a reminder "of our 
call to be reconcilers, to work for reconciliation," he said.

"As the ever louder drum beats for an undefined and expanding 
war on terrorism summon us to invade Iraq, it would be tragic if 
we as Christians allowed the focus of this day to be drawn away 
from those who lost their livelihoods as a result of the 
attacks," said Persell. "Be prayerful and compassionate," he 
said. "Do not be distracted and led astray by the drums calling 
us to war."

Birds of peace

Detroit bishop Wendell Gibbs was in the company of other 
Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and lay people who took 
part in a prayer caravan, sponsored by the National Conference 
for Community and Justice (NCCJ), which headed to three schools 
where identical liturgies were shared. The services culminated 
in the planting of tulip bulbs and the release of a pair of 
white birds at each location.

 "It has been about remembering that there is more to this 
world than terror and terrorists," re-counted Gibbs as the 
caravan completed its last leg. "It's about peace and it's about 
that fact that people can live togetherBeing part of all these 
different faith traditions praying together and hoping for peace 
has been so much more positive than sitting at home watching 
images of death and destruction. And so much more hopeful," 
Gibbs said. "Just as we [as Episcopalians] are part of a larger 
family of the Anglican Communion, we are also part of a larger 
family called the human family. The Episcopal Diocese of 
Michigan has to be a part of the whole community."

March for diversity

In Salt Lake City the Episcopal Church flag was among the signs 
and banners carried in a "March for Freedom, Diversity and 
Remembrance," also sponsored by a local chapter of the NCCJ. 
About 40 parishioners, diocesan staffers and members of 
Integrity/Utah braved a steady evening rain to join 3,500 
marchers. The destination of the mile and a half walk was a 
baseball park, where the Utah Symphony, several choirs, and a 
reading of Maya Angelou's poem "Human Family"  entertained more 
than 7,000 gathered.

Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish wrote in a pastoral letter that 
"this anniversary also holds the danger of becoming a time to 
stoke our feelings of self-righteous indignation and a desire 
for revenge. It could, in other words, lead us to support the 
very kind of violence we have ourselves so recently suffered." 
The pastoral letter was dated September 4, the feast of another 
Utah bishop, Paul Jones, forced to resign in 1918 after only 
four years as missionary bishop because of his pacifist views on 
World War I.

Candles and dove kites

A continent away from Ground Zero, members of the Church of the 
Good Shepherd went door to door in Berkeley, California, to 
invite neighborhood residents to a Wednesday evening Service of 
Remembrance. Three uniformed firefighters from the Berkeley Fire 
Department rang the church's bell at the start and at the 
conclusion of the service, and participated in it. The bell in 
the 125-year old church was originally the first fire bell in 
west Berkeley, and was installed in the church in 1882. 

Congregants at Los Angeles' Cathedral Center illumined the 
pre-dawn shadows by individually placing candles in large 
sand-filled urns at the altar at a 5:30 a.m. service. A dove 
kite carried hopes for peace, and bells tolled recalling the 
exact moments when planes crashed during last year's September 
11 terror attacks on New York, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.	

"September 11 changed this world," said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon 
Bruno, bishop of Los Angeles, in his homily for the morning. "We 
can't live as violent people. We must use our hands to wage 
reconciliation."

Bruno and Connecticut bishop Andrew Smith later joined some 
3,000 persons assembled in the new Roman Catholic Cathedral of 
Our Lady of the Angels for a mid-day Remembrance Service led by 
representatives of major faith communities in Los Angeles. The 
congregation was accompanied at the piano by composer Burt 
Bacharach. 

At Pasadena's Hillsides Home for Children, whose residential and 
off-campus programs have served children and families at risk 
since 1913, the Lynn Angell Memorial Children's Library was 
dedicated on Sunday. Lynn Edwards Angell established a thriving 
library program at Hillsides in the decade before her death. 
Both Lynn and David Angell died after boarding Flight 11 in 
Boston en route to Los Angeles. Angell's mother, brother, and 
sister-in-law, as well as friends from the popular TV series, 
Frasier, of which Angell's husband, David, was a creator, were 
present for the dedication.

------

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News 
Service. Contributors to this article included diocesan 
communicators Jim De La (Southwest Florida); Jim Goodson 
(Dallas); Herb Gunn (Michigan); David Skidmore (Chicago); Bob 
Williams and Mary Trainor (Los Angeles); and the Rev. Dan 
Webster (Utah), as well as Dick Snyder of Church Divinity School 
of the Pacific.