Emancipation Sunday Service at St Peter’s Church

The Anglican Parish of St. George, Bermuda, will again hold its annual Emancipation Sunday Celebration and Memorial Service at St. Peter’s Church – Their Majesties Chappell on Sunday, July 26th, at 10:00 a.m.

The Service will begin in the Church with a Celebration of Holy Communion using elements of the Liturgy of the Church of Nigeria, followed by a short Memorial Service and Wreath-laying ceremony in the Black and Enslaved Peoples’ Cemetery.

“It is fitting, some 192 years after the coming into force of the Emancipation Act on 1 August 1834,” says Rev. Thomas Nisbett, priest and pastor of the Anglican Parish of St. George, “that we would use a worship service format developed by our brothers and sisters of the Church in Nigeria. After all, we are told that the majority of slaves who were brought to Bermuda through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade came from West Africa.”

Worship and preaching at the July 26th event will emphasize not only the spiritual nature and value of Emancipation, but the fact that there is still much work to do to ensure that all peoples of the earth, including all people of Bermuda, should believe themselves to be free.

There will also be a reading from Mary Prince’s book: The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, as a reminder of the importance of celebrating such a seminal milestone in Bermuda’s history.