Earlier this year The Spectator published an article in celebration of Evensong — the nightly sung service of the Anglican Church. Attendance, it seems, is not just up but dramatically so. While church visitor figures across the UK have fallen steadily and substantially since the 1960s, congregations at sung services have swollen up to ten times over, often rising to three figures. Why?
The answers come easily enough. In an increasingly volatile world, the certainty and beauty of Evensong offers a welcome still point — time and space to contemplate, meditate, an opportunity to listen to voices raised in a candlelit chapel and experience spirituality aesthetically rather than intellectually.
The greatest appeal of all, however, seems to lie in the idea of continuity. To attend Evensong is to take part in a great tradition that has continued unbroken in these ancient buildings for centuries, to become part of something bigger and more enduring than oneself.
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