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Church Life Welcome to a new page containing news, features and articles relating to the church of St Helen's, Selston. This page replaces the former Parish Magazine page, which may be re-introduced at a later date.
Index Confirmation Service - 11th May 2008
The Parish Magazine, covering both St Helen's, Selston, and St Mary's, Westwood, was published on a monthly basis up to and including December 2007. Production of the magazine is currently suspended due to the lack of a replacement editor. Copies of articles from past issues may still be obtainable - please contact us via the Contact Page. Suggestions on the future of the magazine are also welcome. Top
In the absence of the Parish magazine, it was decided to produce a single page entry for the Community News, which is produced every three months and distributed to all residents within the parish. Entries from editions of Community News for the first quarter of 2008 onwards are shown below. (Click on a thumbnail to enlarge and then 'back' to return here.)
Jan/Feb/Mar 2008 Apr/May/Jun 2008
St Helen's formally launched a Church Extension project in 1990, following feasibility studies and discussions with the Diocesan Advisory Committee and the local Planning Authority. Originally known as the Family Room Extension project, the plan was to construct an essentially detached two storey building with a glass link to the existing church. This has been extensively revised within the last year in the light of new policies of English Heritage with regard to church extensions. The plan is now to extend the existing building directly along part of the North Aisle, which, coupled with a relocation of the organ, will provide an equivalent amount of space to the original design at lower costs due to the simpler building design.
The dismantling of the organ from its present location and the construction of the platform under the tower where it is to be relocated took place early in 2009. Parts of the instrument are currently undergoing refurbishment in readiness for its rebuilding in its new location later in the year. Tenders are now in hand for the building work and discussions with prospective contractors are taking place. It is expected that the contract will be placed and the work commenced during the summer of 2009.
Confirmation Service - 11th May 2008 St Helen's was the host for this year's Confirmation Service for Newstead Deanery, when Bishop Tony Porter (Bishop of Sherwood), was the confirming Bishop. A total of 27 candidates were confirmed from eight churches and the following pictures may be of interest: Top
Many will have noticed how early Easter came in 2008 and several people asked how it was calculated. Having done a little research, the simplest statement I can come up with is: Easter Day is the first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox. As you might expect it’s not quite that simple – firstly the ‘full moon’ is not the observed astronomical full moon, but rather a ‘paschal’ or ‘ecclesiastical’ full moon that is calculated by formula to avoid the variations in the astronomical calendar, although the two usually correspond to within a day. The vernal equinox is also fixed as the 21 March. This formula was first established by the First Council of Nicaea convened in 325 AD by Constantine. The resulting tables were revised in the sixth century and again in 1582 in line with the new ‘Gregorian’ calendar established under Pope Gregory XIII. The resulting tables are now used in all Western Christian churches. (The eastern Orthodox churches use a different means of calculating Easter which can result in it falling on a different day.) The result of the formula for practical purposes is that Easter Day always falls between 22nd March and 25th April, so the date of the 23rd March 2008 is just one day later than the earliest possible. The occurrence of Easter on the three days at each extreme of the range (22-24 March and 23-25 April) is rare, although the theory indicates that ‘late’ Easters are slightly less rare than ‘early’ ones. It is only of academic interest that the whole cycle of dates repeats every 5,700,000 years! (It won’t, as the lengthening of days will mean that the calendar will need to have been revised long before then!) The number of occurrences of the extreme dates within the whole cycle are however as follows: 22 March 27550 (0.48% or about once in 208 years on average) 23 March 54150 (0.95% or about once in 105 years) 24 March 81225 (1.43% or about once in 70 years) 23 April 106400 (1.87% or about once every 53 years) 24 April 82650 (1.45% or about once every 69 years) 25 April 42000 (0.74% or about once every 135 years) Most of the dates in the middle of the range have a frequency corresponding to between 3.2% and 3.4%, or about once every 30 years on average, although for some reason the 18th April is the clear winner with 3.87% followed by the 19th April with 3.46%. If you are really interested you may wish to have a look at the following two websites!: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/easter.php http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/freq3.html The next ‘Easter of note’ occurs in 2011, when it falls on 24th April, just one day before the latest possible and the reverse situation compared to 2008. Easter and all days linked to it in the Christian calendar (Ash Wednesday, Rogation Sunday, Mothering Sunday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ascension Day, Pentecost and Trinity) will therefore fall nearly 5 weeks later in 2011 than they did in 2008! I am sure you will agree that the formulae has all the hallmarks of something established by a committee! As far as I have been able to determine there is no deep theological reason for it and neither would there be any theological objection to fixing Easter more closely – to this end the second Sunday in April has been suggested which would fix Easter between the 8th and 14th April – although agreement on this would require the establishment of a new committee…
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