Altar Servers
The first lay people to serve at the altar of Christ Church were employed in 1884. Since that date servers have been a key part of the presentation of the liturgy.
The Bishop of Sydney, Alfred Barry had this to say about the introduction of servers in 1884:
I take much the same view as to the employment of an "Acolyte" or "Server" during the service of the Holy Communion. There is no recognition of such an Attendant in the Prayer Book, or the Canons of the Church, or in the general usage of Cathedral and Parish Churches in England, and the introduction of lay ministrants or attendants within the Communion Rails is foreign, so far as I know, to the usage of the Church of England. But here also I find nothing which has been pronounced illegal, and therefore I do not feel it my duty to interfere.
[Bishop Alfred Barry to Charles Frederick Garnsey, 30 December 1884]
Please click on a picture to view a larger image...
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Servers, c 1923
This photograph was taken after the introduction of incense in 1921. Father Statham (centre) wears a chasuble. (There was no Diocesan restriction on wearing the Eucharistic vestment in photographs.) The processional cross was given to the Parish of Hurlstone Park when the current processional cross was obtained in the early 1930s.
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Servers, c 1932
Father John Hope (centre, middle row) is flanked by Father Bradley (left) and the head server Gerry Herrod (right). Lance Sharpe, Herrod’s successor, is holding the thurible in the back row (second from the right).
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Boat boys, c 1932
The parish appears to have adopted lace along with the Western rite in the early years of Father Hope’s incumbency.
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Servers and choir, c 1934
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Christmas crib, 1968
Head server, John Pollard arranges the Christmas crib in a rather more radical setting than past years.
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Servers, 2006
A group of servers at Fr Ron Silarsah's 40th anniversary Mass in 2006.
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