Feast of St Alban celebrated in ecumenical service

Prayers for orphans killed in the trenches of the First World War

St Alban’s feast day, was marked on Sunday with a service on Chantry Island, London Colney, St Albans where he was arrested, approx 1600 years ago, and taken from there to be executed in Verulamium, which is present day St Albans. It is a listed Ancient Monument and is in the grounds of Westminster Diocese's All Saints Pastoral Centre.

The Ecumenical service was preceded by a short ceremony at the All Saints Sisters cemetery and at the memorial to 18 orphans who, at 16, had left the orphanage run by the All Saints Sisters to fight in the trenches in the First World War and all lost their lives in France.

Mgr Vladimir Feltzman, presided at the ceremony with the All Saints Sisters (the Anglican order of nuns who had the premises built in 1899 and sold the site to the Catholic Church in 1973) and many others, some of whom had travelled some distance to observe the feast day of our first martyr, St Alban, together with members of the Pastoral Village company.