ST GEORGE’s, Venice, marked two significant anniversaries on 19 April: 120 years since the consecration of the first Anglican church in Venice, and 100 years since the dedication of its bronze memorial doors. Cast at the Venice Arsenale from melted British naval cannon, the doors commemorate British military and civilian lives lost alongside Italian comrades in the First World War.

The church was filled to capacity for the service, at which the Suffragan Bishop in Europe, the Rt Revd Andrew Norman, presided. In a sermon, the Chaplain of St George’s, the Revd Lucinda Laird, said that, while a church might be a building with walls, the true Church was the gathered people of God. She described the bronze doors as a symbolic threshold between ordinary life and sacred space, where grief, hope, memory, and welcome met. Drawing on the theme of transformation, she spoke of the changing of bread and wine, people, and even the materials of war into signs of peace and renewal.

Among those who attended the service were the Mayor of Calvene, Andrea Pasin; the Honorary British Consul, Ivor Coward; and Sir Simon Rasch, whose wife is the granddaughter of Field Marshal Earl Cavan, who spoke at the dedication of the doors in 1926. Sir Simon recalled Lord Cavan’s reflections on Anglo-Italian friendship and shared sacrifice, and connected the memorial’s origins with contemporary relationships between the two nations.

Readings from Lady Layard’s diary linked the liturgy to the church’s beginnings and to the vision of those who established Anglican worship in Venice. Singing the eucharist were the choir of St Botolph’s Choir, Cambridge, who also during their visit gave a concern of English Tudor music in the Scuola Grande dei Carmini, as part of the Venice Music Project.

The commemoration at St George’s concluded outside the bronze doors with prayers, the sounding of the Last Post, and a shared lunch.