Holy Week 2023 - Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles. On this day, Christians remember the Last Supper. This is concluded by a prayerful candle light vigil in the Lady Chapel. At St Anne's we have a beautifully painted screed over the Lady Chapel Altar venerating the Blessed Sacrament, which is placed on the Altar reminding us of our Lord’s anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane; alongside his disciples as they take watch before his arrest and crucifixion on Good Friday.
Stripping of the Sanctuary: "Often, the service for Maundy Thursday concludes with the stripping of the sanctuary, which is done in absolute silence and in an unhurried, orderly fashion. The practice dates from the seventh century and originally served the practical purpose of cleaning the sanctuary in preparation for Easter, when all things are made new. In time, however, the practice became ceremonial in its own right. In silence and in shadows, communion vessels, table cloths, pulpit and lectern hangings, banners, candles, and all other decorative and liturgical objects are carefully removed, thus dramatizing the desolation, abandonment, and darkness of the Passion and death of our Lord.
The sanctuary remains bare until the beginning of the Easter celebration. Ordinarily there is neither a blessing nor a postlude at the conclusion of the service. The church remains in semi-darkness, and all participants exit in silence. Symbolically, Christ, stripped of his power and glory, is now in the hands of his captors."
Advent & Christmas 2022
Providing a traditional parish Christmas...
We have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with special events and beautiful services for all the family.
Please view our event adverts below. Click on the images to open a large version.
9th December 2022 St Anne's/M67 Motorway Bridge Public Information Event
Accomodating services in the local area.. We are pleased to have been able to accomodate two public information and consultation events (9th & 10th December) with the project team in charge of the upcoming replacement of the motorway bridge where work will start in early 2023. Tilbury Dougles and National Highways set up the room with information banners, posters and screens to provide a full demo of how the work will be undertaken across the next three years. The event has been well attended by the public who are curious to find out what will be involved during the large infracture project.
If you have any questions regarding the bridge replacement, you can still get your questions answered. Simply contact National Highways on the details below:
Email: info@nationalhighways.co.uk Phone: 0300 123 5000 (Customer Contact Centre) and the project team will get straight back to you. Add 'M67 St Anne’s Road Bridge replacement' on the subject line.
For more information visit the project website: M67 St Anne’s Road bridge replacement.
View the latest newsletter regarding the project from August 2022
4th December 2022 Parish Christmas Toy Appeal
Local charitable and community causes are important to us..
We were proud to be able to have the return of our parish christmas toy appeal this year. Our parish kindly collected toys to be distributed to less priviledged children in time for Christmas. This appeal is in keeping with our parish mission which is to provide aid giving and support to local charities.
The toys were brought up and gathered around the chancel steps during our Sunday morning communion service, where Fr Jules proceeded to bless them. The gifts will be delivered to either Wellspring charity on Linden Road or Hyde Library who will distribute them to communities in need.
20th November 2022 - Death of our former rector Fr Martin Ashworth
It is with deep sadness that we learn of the death of our much loved former rector Fr. Martin Ashworth who was our parish priest between 1971 to 1983.
Fr Ashworth was the first rector appointed after the passage of the living had passed to the bishop of Manchester from the patron family; however he was in fact first appointed by the senior family member in 1971 - Mr Frederick John Sidebotham.
The period of his incumbancy at St Anne's ran parallel with the construction of the M67 motorway and he lead the opening ceremony in 1981, as chairmen of the Denton Council of Churches.
The funeral will take place where he had his final incumbancy St Margaret's Church, Prestwich on Wednesday 7th December 2022 at 11.00am. He will be received into church at 5.00pm during a service of evening prayer on the day before.
Parishioners of St Anne's church who knew Fr Ashworth have been invited to attend.
9th November 2022 Our Church in Manchester Evening News
Historic church being shaken to its foundations by motorway traffic
"A church which is being shook to its foundations by motorway traffic has been placed on an at risk register.
The Grade I Parish Church of St Anne in Denton dates from 1880 and is a Victorian gothic architectural gem.."
7th November 2022 Room Rentals: Parish Room now available for Rent
We have now launched a dedicated page for our community room rentals.
Please visit the Room Rentals page to find out what we can offer you with our multi-functional room facitlies
In addition to the Arrandale Room which was refurbished in August 2021; the Parish Room has now been furnished with the necessities to open this space up to rental opportuntiies.
If you are looking for space for a special event, social activity club, training school or business meeting/conferance then we will be happy to accomodate you.
10th September 2022 Signing Book of Condolance - HM Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)
Today at 11:00am our parish priest Fr Jules Mambu was the first to sign our parish book of condolance in memoriam to our late Queen.
The church remained open for members of the public to enter church and write their own message of thanksgiving for her life and service to the nation.
Today was originally scheduled to be our parish heritage open day. The event was cancelled and will now take place next year in September 2023
4th February 2021 Coffee Zoom
Online networking and faith discussion platform..
Today we had our first Coffee Zoom meeting, a brand new concept open to anyone to join. These session aim to be very relaxed for people to freely talk with eachother, a networking aspect which most of us have missed during the lockdowns; the focus is on sharing our own personal insights to our faith, with a cuppa in hand.
Additionally in these sessions we aim to reflect on topics of the moment, do they impact on our daily lives both postive and negative? People are free to share their views and opinions. We will also share and discuss biblical scripture and prayerfully meditate on any prayer requests submitted.
Although we will be temporarily pausing the sessions over Lent, we will introduce Coffee Zoom again after Easter once the online Lent courses have completed.
The online zoom invitations will be published on the front page of our website as well as on our parish facebook group. These sesions are open to everyone.
20th December 2020 Parish Christmas Toy Appeal
Local charitable community causes are important to us..
We believe as a traditional parish church that it is our responsibility to contribute to local charitible incentives.
We have therefore been collecting toys as part of this new parish appeal to donate to the Linden Road Children Centre and Wellspring Charity for those children who are not lucky enough to have a toy to open at Christmas.
We would like to thank everyone for generously donating toys to this appeal by delivering them to our chancel steps this morning. It was short notice and we appreciate the efforts you have all made to make our first toy appeal a huge success. The donations will be delivered to the charity for distribution to the local community.
Our parish is looking forward to getting involved in further local charitable causes in the near future.
26th November 2020 Launch of the 'Worship with Jules' Youtube channel
Providing christian ministry online for those unable to attend church..
We have created a Youtube channel which will ensure that our online worship remains accessible to those unable to attend church due to self-isolating during the coronavirus pandemic. Click here to visit the channel.
This includes all Worship with Jules sunday worship episodes covering the entire Christian calendar of Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, Advent and Epithany which began filming in April 2020.
Please share these episodes with your family and friends via youtube and subscrible to the chanel to receive the latest notifications.
10th August 2019 Fr Jules Mambu's 25th Anniversary Celebration of Priesthood
Celebrating the sacred ministry of our parish priest with family and friends..
Today we enjoyed a celebratory mass in honour of Fr Jule's 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood.
The church was completely full with guests from across the country who had come to attend this special occasion, followed by a party finger buffet, cake and wine in the undercroft after the service.
We were also honoured to be joined by the Manchester LACR team of change bell ringers who kindly volunteered to ring out our entire peel of bells across the parish.
7th August 2019 Beer and Believing
Socialising and faith based outreach within the local community..
Today we launched the very first Beer and Believing event, an opportunity aimed at the guys in the parish. The aim of this event is to meet and socialise with some of our local community down the pub, whilst spending some quality time with our wonderful parish priest Fr Jules!
We meet at The Chapel House on Stockport Road from 6.30pm onwards where you will find us chatting about church life, community, faith and mission.
15 gentlemen from different churches in Denton and even further beyond casually attended our first event at different stages throughout evening. This was a very relaxed affair and with an outlined agenda produced by Fr Jules we managed to chat with a couple of visitors about faith and the church. Due to the success of the event and the positive feedback received we plan to make this a monthly event in order to grow and develop our outreach opportunities in the local community.
*This event is currently paused during the pandemic, however we intend to relaunch Beer and Believing in the future once local and national restrictions have eased.*