St. Clements Anglican Church (25 December 2011)

On Christmas day, which was Sunday, I went to St. Clement's Anglican Church.  I chose this church because it was the only English-language service not officiated by a woman that I found in my "English Language Church Prague" Google search.  For the record, however, I did indeed sneak out during the Eucharist (they make that easy by making everybody go up, a row at a time, for the laying on of hands).  The service was very, very English.  The sermon was "Make Room for Jesus" which seems like standard Christmas fare.  The church was pretty full.  The pastor was happy because he said that this year it looked like the regular members had put in an appearance--apparently, last year they were outnumbered by the tourists (or last week?  All of a sudden this story doesn't make sense to me.).  They sang some old, familiar hymns, but some of them didn't have the old, familiar tunes, which was a little confusing, and they did everything out of the Prayer Book.

The church was really chilly.  They had heaters under the seats, so your feet were toasty warm but your face and hands were very cold.  The church is old quite old.  It is kind of a cross between Gothic and Romanesque architecture.  It is getting taller and the windows are getting bigger, but it has the old Romanesque arches inside.  According to the church's website, about their history, which you can read here, if you are interested, while the church is only 108 years old, the building is almost a 1,000 years old.  I didn't get any pictures of the interior but, in searching the internet for pictures of the interior, I stumbled upon a blog written by the Rev. Ricky Yates, the pastor of the church.  If you go to this link, you will see some wedding pictures which show the interior of the church.  If you go here you can go to the home page of the blog, if you want to check up on what the Czech Anglicans are up to.




This plaque is on the side of the church.  It commemorates the 500th anniversary of Jan Huss's death.