This is the story of an Easter church and the perilous journey of one of its beloved icons.

St. Timothy's Church is a medium-sized parish in Oregon's capital city of Salem, 40-some miles south of big-city Portland in a farming valley between two mountain ranges. St. Timothy's is an active, vital church. "There are few nominal people in the parish," said the rector, the Rev. Rick Campbell. "No fluff. Everyone is really committed."

The center of parish life is Holy Week, the culmination of "the ritual of human faith" in a prayer book Anglican church, charismatic in the sense that "worship is the heart of everything, not scholastic but mystical. Worship is what keeps us together in spite of fights."

Office manager Mary McFetridge said, "Our rector is intense about theology and liturgy."

The building, perhaps 30 years old, is a high wood pyramid, with skylights and contemporary windows lighting the rich wood tones of the interior, catching the gold of icons at the altar and along the sides. The classically written icons represent the Russian heritage of the area and in the congregation - one of many ethnicities present - and the orthodox roots of much of Anglican prayer and liturgy. The icons are beautiful, as is the music, the bells, the incense that contribute especially to the Holy Week services, "beauty done without apology." But their greater purpose, Fr. Campbell said, is "the sense [they give] of being surrounded by a greater company."

Michael McFetridge is a mental health crisis worker and St. Timothy's chief catechist. Adults who desire baptism and confirmation enter the catechumenate process in late fall. Candidates meet Wednesdays to discuss how to use the previous Sunday's readings "in our own personal and public lives - living out our baptism," Mr. McFetridge said. "Every three or four years we have an unbaptized person." This year there were six catechumens, one of whom was baptized.

Following the Good Friday service, the catechumens and their instructors retreat to the Roman Catholic Benedictine Shalom Center for a period of fasting, renunciation, and affirmation, returning home Saturday afternoon to prepare for the 9 p.m. Vigil.

Assisting catechist Becki Sleeman "grew up Quaker, with no sacraments." Her first visit to St. Timothy's, at a friend's invitation, happened to be on a Palm Sunday, with "a procession, bells, incense, vestments - quite different from my Quaker offshoot!" She was touched by the traditional sentence that the church "welcomes to Holy Communion those who have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity." She said, "I knew I hadn't been."

To prepare for baptism, she said, "Candidates are told to dress simply, in something that dries quickly. Of course we have lots of fluffy white towels."

The font, at the "west" end of the nave, is an octagonal, wood-sided immersion font, built by a parishioner. Candidates climb a few steps and are helped into the water. Afterwards, Ms. Sleeman said, "They change into 'Easter outfits.' Some chose pure white. The congregation sings hymns until they return, and then the service continues." Communion is received first by the newly baptized who are given a sip of warm milk and honey, followed by bread and wine.

"I'm so glad I was an adult when I was baptized," Ms. Sleeman said. "I know it was a turning point." Her son, 6 years old then, was baptized with her, after a simplified preparation. "He remembers it very well. And he's active in the church."

After the service comes the Agape feast, a pot luck of international foods, at which the newly baptized and the catechumens are guests of honor. "There's dancing, first ethnic, then couples. We may finish at 5:00 in the morning," Mr. McFetridge said. Confirmation will take place at Pentecost. Ms. Sleeman explained, "Baptism is between you and Christ; confirmation is between you and the church."

This Easter, a special icon lay on the altar of repose, rather than hanging in its usual place above the tabernacle. In a way, it is awaiting a healing and a resurrection of its own. Given by the family of senior warden Chris Hefty and written by an Orthodox iconographer, it pictures Christ the Teacher with the gospel book open to the phrase "I am the bread of life." Christ's robe of royal blue, his tunic and hair of deep sienna-red, are set against a background of glowing gold leaf. On March 11, a young man who had been in the church supposedly praying and reading the Bible was seen running out, carrying the 18-by-24-inch icon. He got away.

The next day, at Siskiyou Summit near the California border, the sky was overcast when father and son truckers Norman and Peter Lervold stopped to switch drivers. As they edged forward from their original point, the sun broke through, and caught a glint of gold at the side of the road.

Barbara Lervold, Norman's wife and Peter's mother, drove up to Salem the next day with the stolen icon, not wishing to trust the sacred object to the mail. The family plans to be present for the service of reconsecration.

The rarely used service for the restoring of things profaned, fromThe Book of Occasional Services, has been performed "by a older retired priest active in healing," Fr. Campbell said. "Prayers were said for all who were hurt, including the thief. We had prayers for the consecration of the church, too. You can't discount the reality of evil."

Organist Jeff Swartwort said, "The icon was badly damaged with graffiti. There was a pentagram on Christ's chest, with other signs and names." Fr. Campbell said, "It was defaced with Satanic symbols. The face was made into a beast." These were gouged into the wood, as with a nail. The thief tried to scratch out the words on the open book, but did not succeed. "God had the last word," Fr. Campbell said. After the icon is restored it will be reconsecrated. "The restorer will leave some of the marks - like the nail marks in the risen Christ," Fr. Campbell said.

"There are many miraculous elements in the story: the sun coming out at the right moment, the truckers being devout Lutherans. [A reporter who covered the story] was a lapsed Episcopalian. It has touched the lives of many people." Said Mr. McFetridge, "The icon must have been troubling to the thief - he got rid of it."

During the Palm Sunday celebration, when Mr. Swartwort's organ made its "triumphal return," its "traditional English sound" brightened with new trebles, all of it voiced into "a single instrument, no longer a random box of whistles," through Holy Week and Easter, the lost and returned icon of Christ the Teacher symbolized the sorrow turned to joy celebrated at St. Timothy's, an Easter church. o