Canterbury, Vigil Are TV Features
Episcopal News Service. March 19, 1981 [81097]
NEW YORK -- The Great Vigil of Easter as celebrated in a small suburban parish and a program featuring the Archbishop of Canterbury are two forthcoming television offerings that mark a new emphasis in television ministry by the Episcopal Church Center.
The Vigil Service will be available to 440 cable television outlets through Modern Satellite Network and will include the full panoply of Lessons, Baptismal Covenant, Confirmation and Eucharist that mark the first celebration of the Resurrection. St. Francis, Stamford, Conn., a mid-19th century wood frame building that seats only slightly more than 100 worshippers, was chosen to demonstrate the full range of liturgical possibilities opened, through the Book of Common Prayer, to congregations of all sizes. Connecticut's Bishop Coadjutor Arthur Walmsley will preside.
That program will be transmitted 12 noon to 1 p. m. Easter day over RCA SATCOM I on Transponder #22. The Church Center Radio/TV officer, Sonia Francis, noted in a letter to congregations that people need to call the local cable outlet and ask them to broadcast it directly or tape it for rebroadcast.
On Sunday, May 3, the National Broadcasting Company will air "Apostles of Hope," featuring Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin, Bishop Peter Kwong, of Hong Kong and Archbishop Manasses Kuria of Kenya in interviews and a liturgy from the National Cathedral. The program will focus on the worldwide Anglican Communion as represented in the meeting of Primates which will have ended the day before.
That program will be transmitted at 1 p. m. and, again, it is necessary to encourage local NBC affiliates to broadcast or tape for rebroadcast this program.
Both programs can be recorded on home video equipment and used for congregational education programs.