Thursday, December 20, 2018

100 Years of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College

A reminder that this Christmas Eve will be the 100thanniversary of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College Cambridge.  It will also be the last one directed by Stephen Cleobury.

It is hard to imagine anything good coming out of World War I, but the Nine Lessons service was in large part a response to that bittersweet Christmas of 1918 being just six weeks after the Armistice.  The Dean of King’s, Eric Milner-White, was convinced the usual Christmas Eve service would not do, and his response was Nine Lessons and Carols.
Readers know what I normally think of liturgical innovations, but this was a godly innovation indeed, and one I listen to every year.
More information may be found here, including this year’s program, and a more detailed history of this service. An even more detailed history of the service may be found in a chapter of King’s College Chapel 1515-2015.  And the program of the 1918 Nine Lessons service may be viewed here.

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