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Parish, Deanery & Diocese
Our parish
of Ss Alban & Stephen is in
the City of St. Albans and is one of seventeen parishes in the St Albans deanery. It's one of two parishes
serving the City of
St Albans, the other being St Bartholomew's parish.
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The Parish
With over 1,500 regular attendances at Sunday Mass, and with
five masses every Sunday
(including the Saturday vigil) in the Church, plus one at each of two mass centres,
it is one the three largest parishes in the Hertfordshire
Pastoral Area
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History
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The parish "began" in
1840, although Mass was initially celebrated at a number of makeshift
and temporary locations, including the White Hart pub!
The church as we know it today was built in 1904.
When the nave was completed
the church was dedicated and blessed by Most Rev. Francis Boume, Archbishop
of Westminster on New Year's Day
1905.
Building work carried on from time to time up until 1966, when the side aisles
were added, the Church was lengthened back towards the railway, and the tower
was added.
In 2005, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
led us in our celebration of the centenary of that pivotal event in the history
of the parish.
At the start of a new millennium
the Catholic community has become an integral part of the religious, civic
and social life of St Albans.
From our small beginning we now have a splendid church, five schools to
nurture our children, an incredibly evangelistic parish, as this website
shows, and a wonderful history of Christian witness and public service.
Many thanks to the late James Corbett, the late Malcolm Smith, Geoff Miller
and to Fr Jerry for their input into creating this online history.
There's plenty of information about the history of the parish
on this website on our history page
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Schools
There are eight Catholic Schools (Junior,
Mixed, Infants and Secondary) in the parish, as well as the Maryland Convent.
Pastoral Council
The parish is an active one. The Parish Pastoral Council (PPC)
is made of around 12 lay people and the clergy, ad meets every month. The
PPC has links to over 50 active groups within the parish
Multicultural - we are blessed in our parish to
draw parishioners form far and wide, particularly from Ireland, Italy,
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, and many of our ethnic groups have their own
web pages here - please do visit them. If you too are from overseas and you'd
like your own web pages, do let us know
St Albans Abbey
The main church is only 1km from the St Albans Abbey,
with whom the parish has close links, including
the weekly celebration there of Holy Mass.
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Main Navigation 2009
Main Navigation 2009
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