At Your Service: A glorious church for all weathers

"The God of glory thundereth," says verse three, "the Lord is upon many waters."

Time was when a bishop would have had a chaplain to hold his umbrella - there's probably a biblical reference to that as well - and the chaplain, in turn, someone to hold his.

Times change, storm clouds gather. "Internecine warfare is a favourite displacement activity in the church," the Bishop, the Rt Rev John Pritchard, writes in the latest diocesan newspaper.

Last Sunday, nonetheless, it was possible to detect a shaft of light.

We were at St Mary Magdalene's in Belmont, east of Durham, firstly for the consecration of a garden of remembrance where the sacristan's house once stood, thereafter for the launch of what prosaically is the parish hall appeal and realistically is a step towards a bright future.

Bishop John was joined in the churchyard by the deputy diocesan registrar, turned out in wig and gown as if for a Sunday shift at the Assizes, by the Rev Rob Innes - the Vicar - and by a gathering of the hardy.

He prayed that that piece of land might be "set apart from all profane and common uses" and, another sign of the times, that it might be protected from disturbance and vandalism.

Inside the church all was warm and welcoming, one or two wearing little smiley badges, others anxious to accommodate or to explain. Even the column's notorious myopia was thoughtfully acknowledged, the sign saying "Reserved for the press" written in six inch capitals but still recalling the small print of Luke 19:2...

"He sought to see Jesus, and could not for the press."

We'd written about St Mary's just 16 months ago, noted its vitality and its resurgence, reported the opinion thereabouts that Rob Innes might become the next Archbishop of Canterbury but two.

It is a church on a roll, as a meteorologist might say, one that has found the impetus and energy of the "new" churches without losing the centralities (and the great treasures) of the Church of England.

"We were still a very strong and faithful church before," says Geoff Moore, one of the churchwardens. "It's just that since Rob arrived in 1999 things seem to have been ratcheted up a gear. That's when the kids started flowing into church."

The imaginative parish hall project - deliberately not church hall, it'll be there for everyone - is designed to help St Mary's move, accelerate, with the times. They hope to start building next year - "both a physical and spiritual heart for our community," says the appeal brochure.

It will cost £473,000, plus fees and furniture, some funding available through grants and through money raised when the scouts and guides lost their hut earlier. The 16 members of the Parochial Church Council have between them pledged £34,000.

"It was about leadership, putting our money where our mouths were," says Geoff.

That extra accommodation is needed was again witnessed by an almost full church, though the Rev Jenny Moberley, a former professional singer who became curate two years ago, is still unable to work after contracting viral meningitis during a visit to America in February.

We were also advised, and forgot, to speak to Torfrieda Swain, daughter of an African king, who at almost 90 is still doing sponsored swims for the church.

A dozen or so members of the congregation carried different coloured helium balloons, with letters which together spelt Love, Trust and Hope.

It was to be the theme of the launch: love for the community, trust in one another to achieve their aims, hope for the future.

The bishop, temporarily in charge of the Durham diocese and very greatly regarded within it, delivered a quite splendid sermon, at once anecdotal and incisive, humorous and heart searching - just one brief allusion to what might be termed the present problem, one more, yet more fleeting, to the press.

Perhaps the most memorable anecdote was one he'd picked up from the letter pages of The Times, a reference to pre-nuptial contracts from a chap who'd been married 62 years. "We agreed," he'd written, "that if she ever left me, she'd take me with her."

Musically it's also marvellous, Chris Percival on one of two grand pianos from a concert the previous evening - they're delivered in bits, apparently - the Vicar's children Ruth and Rebecca prominent in a lively young people's group.

There's a happiness and a confidence about it all, and if Rob Innes isn't to be Archbishop of Canterbury some day, he may not in the least be perturbed.

"I think he still has quite a lot to do here," said Helen, his wife, who also works part time among the parish's young people.

The service lasted around 90 minutes, ended with Lord For the Years. The sun was shining at the conclusion.

* Principal Sunday services at St Mary Magdalene, Belmont, are at 8am, 9.30am and 6pm. The Rev Rob Innes is on 0191-386-1545. Donations towards the parish hall appeal can be sent to Trevor Uren, 16 Herefordshire Drive, Belmont, Durham. (0191-384-5911).

A fond farewell to Father Croghan

FR Eamonn Croghan, 50 years a devoted and utterly distinctive priest in the Roman Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, died in Ireland on Wednesday. He was 75.

We'd written a year ago of his golden jubilee in the priesthood, when the children of St John Vianney primary school in Hartlepool made a glorious papier-mache figure of their parish priest and governors' chairman.

"It is a fitting spitting image," the column observed, "an A-plus for effigy and attainment, as mischievous, as faithful, as twinkling and as disinclined to discuss matters of doctrine with the godless denizens of HM Press as is Fr Croghan himself."

Fr Eamonn, model priest, eyed the effigy impishly. "It looks like some fat old fellow," he said.

He first served in the parish of St Joseph's, Sunderland, then as a curate at St Andrew's, Newcastle and at Langley Moor, near Durham, before becoming parish priest of St John Vianney's in 1971.

In Langley Moor, where he continued his work with the Samaritans, he and a fellow volunteer were followed by detectives who thought the pair were setting out on a burglary.

Fr Eamonn also took many of the photographs for Northern Cross, the diocesan newspaper, usually on duty when Cardinal Basil Hume arrived. "I know I'm home when I see you," the cardinal would observe.

On one unforgettable occasion he'd assembled the entire hierarchy of the Catholic church in England and Wales for a photograph at Ushaw College, and had to ask them do it again two days later after discovering that the laboratory had destroyed his film. He never used the shop again.

Fr Eammon retired to his native Ireland last September, accompanied in his elderly Nissan Micra by his sister and all his worldly goods. "It was a signal of his humility," says Northern Cross editor John Bailey.

Fr Dennis Tindall, who will give an address at Fr Eamonn's funeral - in his native Strokestown, Co Roscommon, on Monday - said that he had had a genuine regard for people, especially the young.

"No one will ever know about most of his work with individuals. He was a non-conformist who never really appreciated how much he was loved. He spent himself for others."

Fr Eamonn was also governors' chairman at English Martyrs school for almost 30 years. "He was unique, there was no other priest quite like him," said retired head David Relton.

"He very seldom took a holiday, almost never took a day off. He had no interest in material things, just totally himself immersed in his work."

The Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, the Rt Rev Ambrose Griffiths, leads a memorial requiem Mass for Fr Eamonn at St John Vianney's, Hartlepool, at 7pm on Friday July 4.