Last Sunday, Epiphany’s Director of Music, Zach Hemenway, walked the parish through 500 years of the Anglican choral tradition that forms the basis of Choral Evensong today. This took place directly after the weekly Choral Evensong service which we celebrate at 5:30 pm every Sunday. You can watch Zach’s talk below. Scroll down for a summary!
All About Evensong: Full Recording on YouTube
Summary of Zach’s Talk on the History of Evensong
“Evensong is one of those words that you either know what it is or you don’t,” Zach Hemenway joked with the crowd of 50+ parishioners and visitors gathered to learn more about Choral Evensong at Epiphany. “There’s no gray area, truly.” His talk was part of the parish’s “Getting to Know Epiphany” series, led by Amanda Eap, Parish Life Minister, designed to help newcomers find their place at Epiphany.
Zach walked us through Evensong’s backstory, starting with a 6th-century monk named St. Benedict who came up with something called the Liturgy of the Hours—basically a schedule of daily prayers that included Vespers and Compline. “These monks, it was built around the rule of ora et labora,” he explained, which means “pray and work.” Zach pointed out something pretty practical: Vespers included lighting candles because, well, there were no light bulbs back then. If you waited too long after sunset, you wouldn’t be able to find the candles to begin with. Each service paired scripture readings with specific songs—the Magnificat (Mary’s song of praise) and the Nunc Dimittis (Simeon’s prayer).
Fast forward to the English Reformation, when Thomas Cranmer created the Book of Common Prayer. Zach explained that Cranmer was trying to solve a problem: how do you make monastic prayer work for regular people who can’t stop every few hours to pray? “What Cranmer wanted to do with the Book of Common Prayer was to make the liturgy of the hours accessible to the average person,” Zach said. So Cranmer created Evensong—essentially smooshing Vespers and Compline together while keeping the traditional structure of readings followed by the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.
Evensong is having a bit of a moment in The Episcopal Church right now, with more parishes bringing it back. At Epiphany, what started as a pandemic workaround has turned into a weekly highlight, with attendance jumping from about 10 people to around 100. “I really believe in services like this,” Zach shared. “More Evensong in the world will not make things worse. It can only make it better.” Epiphany is one of just a handful of U.S. churches doing Evensong every Sunday, keeping alive what Zach calls an ongoing “river of prayer” that connects today’s worshippers to centuries of Christian tradition.