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Several years ago the District church of Holy Angels, Claremont faced possible closure, but the visit of the Bishop of Manchester on Sunday February 8, 2009 was a good opportunity to celebrate the congregation's imaginative approach to 'being church' and to look forward to the future with hope and faith.
Holy Angels has no Sunday morning worship but it has a healthy regular Tuesday congregation of more than thirty and a monthly Sunday evening service at 5.30pm. It was around this monthly celebration that the bishop's pilgrimage had been planned.
"Interestingly", says the Revd Mark Haworth, Team Rector of Salford All Saints "we now get more people on a Tuesday than we ever did on a Sunday morning". A number of the congregation worship at St Thomas', the parish church on Sunday, and Holy Angels in the week. The church has a sharing agreement with an Elim Pentecostal Congregation, and their pastors both joined the pilgrimage and met the bishop.
After the bishop's mid-afternoon arrival, he was taken to Pendleton Court Nursing Home, where Fr Mark regularly takes Holy Communion to a resident. After meeting residents and staff, the bishop toured the parish and saw its many contrasts.
The bishop returned to a traditional afternoon tea in the community hall for about 50-60; church members and guests from the neighbourhood, including members of the community association and bowls club.
After the reception nearly seventy people, including leaders from Holy Angels playgroup, moved into the worship area of the building (built in the 1990s to replace the earlier church) for the pilgrimage service.
Richard Wavish PCC secretary and deputy warden at Holy Angels spoke the history of the parish over the years.
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