Below is a testimony , in pictures and words, to our resilience and the work of the Holy Spirit. that was written in June, 2022, by Val Jutsum, the editor of our newsletter, “The Song.” She was moved to reflect on our experience of coming out of pandemic lock-down. -Ruth+

When everyone, everywhere

had to drop whatever they were doing in March 2020 because of the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019, we at Christ Church had to scramble to keep practicing our worship without being in the same room together, and practice we did. We practiced worshipping from our homes while being led by our priest, The Very Rev’d Ruth Ferguson, from her living room on a Facebook Streamed Video. We practiced getting new technology. We practiced setting up and using a YouTube channel. We practiced using ZOOM. And, every week we hoped, like the rest of the world, that soon we would be able to resume our normal lives and worship.

As the pandemic lumbered on, we realized, along with the rest of the world, that there is no such thing as normal. There probably never had been any such thing. We came to embrace the day to day that we had been given and the grace from God to make all that practicing mean something.

The Great Vigil of Easter 2021

We resumed in person worship on April 3rd, 2021, The Feast of the Great Vigil of Easter, more than a year after we had shut down. We all wore masks. The next morning we had our first baptism of the new era; Harriet, who greeted the event with shrieks of displeasure and also joy.

Harriet gets baptized

She now helps with Coffee Hour after the 11:00am eucharist and has also helped her mother read the New Testament Lesson on Trinity Sunday, 2022; Romans 5:1-5.

We have every intention of imitating Christ and having Harriet be a role model. We have done our own shrieking in frustration, but also in joy. We enjoy serving each other and sharing the scriptures, like Harriet. We are comfortable caring for each other. We have grown together in all that practicing.

We currently use our historic, exquisitely lovely, holy, sanctuary at 141 East Avenue for Sunday worship, and we have resumed in-person worship in addition to a livestream on YouTube for members of the congregation who want to participate from their homes. Music is made and music is heard, and sung, but now it’s in a bigger space, digital as well as physical. Prayers are offered together, but the locations are as diverse as the people praying. We still use our kitchen to make meals twice a week for A Meal and More, and we serve those in need of a meal, in the dining room again. We still hang out in small groups for Morning and Evening Prayer, but it is in a ZOOM chat room. We have taken the summer off for Holy Eucharist on Thursdays at 12:00 noon in the Chapel, AND Compline and 1st Sunday Candlelight Concerts will be BACK again on Sunday evenings at 9:00, beginning in October. Candlelight Concerts are on first Sunday of the month, the half hour previous to Compline, at 8:30pm. Compline follows at 9:00 pm.

We pray for the health our nation and the world.

Please scroll down to see more pictures.

We hope to meet you as soon as you wander over. Consider joining us to pray the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer twice every week. These are ZOOM meetings that are open to the public through these links:

We are a downtown Rochester, New York, Episcopal church. Our building, which was built in stages as finances allowed, has been a fixture on East Avenue since 1855. Christ Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008 under the category of architecture/engineering. The church was built in a Gothic Revival style using “rock-faced red Albion sandstone,” according to a description on the National Register. The church has buttresses and flying buttresses. We recently won the Western New York Landmark Society 2022 Award of Merit for the restoration of our dear, crumbling building. The News story is here. ->