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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
From Sun 6 to 27 April
Breastplate will be displayed behind the altar of the Side Chapel and lit from below so that it glows from within, thereby revealing its feather-filled fragility and the talismanic contents of its pockets.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
The work of St James’s, it costs us £5,000 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us.
A reimagined St James’s realised. A redesigned garden, courtyard and new building capacity—all fully accessible— will provide beautiful spaces for all as well as improving our environmental performance.
Whether shooting a blockbuster TV series or creating a unique corporate event, every hire at St James’s helps our works within the community.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
Mariel Glover, a member of the congregation at St James’s Piccadilly’s partner church of St Bart’s in New York, offers her reflections on the power of Holy Week.
Holy Week is one of my most favorite times in the liturgical calendar. During Holy Week, we all have the privilege of participating and reliving Jesus’s last week on earth. Sometimes, this week is referred to as Passion Week, because the passion of Christ is at its highest. This is a week of both holy and intense passion when we are witness to and participate in the all the events that lead, propel, and prepare us for Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.
In this time of deep contemplation, suffering, pain, betrayal, loss, death, joy and hope; we Christians are invited into faithful following of Christ, especially in difficult and challenging times. I find it is also a time to reaffirm my faith and celebrate with my Christian family. Holy Week reminds me that we journey together and that we need each other. It is a time when we can reaffirm our faith by asking God to make us faithful in the times of trial, to know Christ in his suffering and death so that we might better celebrate the joys of Easter.
As I write this, I am on a retreat; thoughtfully communing with a few of my Christian brothers and sisters. What a gift to have a retreat at this time, especially a retreat that prepares me and this cohort for a pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland, this Spring. To be a pilgrim is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, and one could say that every pilgrimage is akin to the season of Lent.
Lent is a time that causes us to look inward (to examine our own lives and to repent) and even consider our own personal sacrifices, so that we might better understand the sacrifice that was made for us. In these sacrifices and fasts, we seek to imitate Jesus that we might be drawn more closely into his heart and life. Lent reminds us that we are invited to carry our own crosses as a way of helping Jesus carry his.
Holy Week is the incredible and sentimental conclusion of our Lenten season and serves to remind us all of God’s infinite love through the crucifixion and resurrection of His Son. Palm Sunday warms my heart as we recount Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem. On this day, it is tradition that we all begin the week, celebrating Christ; shouting, hosannas and praising Jesus’s name. It is a time to revel in the story and symbolically greet our Savior.
For me, holy week is both the time of great reflection and appreciation for what God has provided all of us. It also is a time when we prepare for a number of intricately performed, choreographically timed, and pensively delivered services leading up to and including our Easter celebrations.
Our week begins joyously. However, as we reach Maundy Thursday, I am ever reminded that our salvation came at the cost of a betrayal and subsequent execution. As I recall Christ’s last supper and his final instructions to his followers, I find myself preparing for the inevitabilities of the following day. I know the story and I know of the agony to come. On Good Friday, we reflect on the seven last words of Jesus. There is little decoration, and both our crosses and clothing are black. For me, the Good Friday service is always a stark reminder that there are those who continue to suffer throughout the world, not to mention, or rather forget to mention, those who fight to remain in this country. It is often the presence of change or difference which calls us to think critically about what truly our identity as Christians means. If we are to follow Christ’s teachings and respond to new or differing circumstances with His love, it is imperative that we remember that there are people today all around the world who still ask why God has forsaken them. There are still those who thirst; and there are those who commit their life into God’s hands. These are our siblings in Christ, children of our same Father. Jesus’s sacrifice is a profound example that it is not just our faith but our humanity that makes us worthy of God’s never-ending love. At the conclusion of our remembrance of Christ’s last hours the bell tolls thirty-three times, once for each year of his life on earth. We exit the nave in pensive silence.
On the evening of Holy Saturday, I and fellow members at Saint Bartholomew’s Church participate in our Easter vigil. We light our candles from the blaze in the back of the nave and gather around as we bring the light of Christ to all. From darkness to light, we reach the moment when the tomb is discovered empty. We baptize, we celebrate, we rejoice, we sing our first “Alleluia” to proclaim that Christ is indeed risen!
What a gift it is that through Christ’s suffering and death we have been given eternal life, because of His sacrifice, His love, and His selfless actions.
Our celebration continues into Sunday, punctuated with banners and hymns of praise. The season of Eastertide is my favorite as I continue to revel in the story of Christ’s resurrection. So my siblings in Christ across the pond, when the time comes, together with all at St Bart’s, I will say to all of you: Happy Easter!
Watch The Liturgies of Holy Week: A Transatlantic Conversation on our YouTube channel where the clergy of St James’s Piccadilly and St Bart’s New York shared a conversation about their .Holy Week services
