Choral Evensong at St. Paul’s
St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of London’s most iconic landmarks, is also one of my favourite churches in the world. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1710 after the Great Fire of London destroyed its medieval predecessor, it remains an active Anglican cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of London.
I love to attend the full-choir service on Sunday afternoons. There is something almost otherworldly about standing beneath the great dome—Wren’s masterpiece, inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome—while the voices of the choir rise and fall, filling the vast space. The music floats upward and lingers. All around, shimmering mosaics and luminous paintings seem to catch the sound and hold it in their silence.
For me, an avowed atheist, this is perhaps the closest I come to a religious experience: not faith, but awe, the sense of being lifted momentarily beyond the ordinary by beauty.