“The history of this place is absolutely fascinating,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said to the Christ Church, Durham congregation with a mischievous grin.“From the parish libraries sent by Thomas Bray, which your rector has researched, to the history of the rector who was jailed for bigamy in 1698…”

The Presiding Bishop arrived in style for the April 10 celebration of the parish’s 350th anniversary.

Parishioners had organized a cavalcade of shining motorcycles, with Episcopal flags flying, to escort her to the “little brick church in the wildwood.”

Senior warden Bill Heisserman began the ceremony with emotion, remembering “all those who came before us.”

“With their skilled hands and loving hearts, they built and nurtured this place and transformed the clay, sand and wood into a house of God,” he said.

“You have survived war and revolution, you have lived through lean years and lusher ones,” the Presiding Bishop told the congregation, referencing Ezekiel. “You know something about dry bones, and the new life that God is breathing into them.”

Then, sounding like the prophets of old, she warned the overflowing congregation that the demographic makeup of the community was changing fast. “How are the bones of Christ Church going to live in the midst of this change?” she asked.

“The gospel story about Lazarus is a challenge to anyone who thinks things are hopeless,” she added. “God is forever turning death to life, if we are willing to ask, and hope, and see.”

“How will the people of Christ Church continue to love the community around you into new and resurrected life?” she asked, following with a gentle suggestion: “See deeply enough to notice the suffering. Do a little weeping—for compassion can be the best motivation for change there is.”

Melodies sung by the Old Durham Choir reached as far back as 1228, when the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote O Lux Beatissima. The soaring O for the Wings of a Dove, was sung by former opera star Alicia Cordelle with accompaniment by violinist Bernard Vallandingham. The Durham Girls Choir offered a softly sweet Hebrew rendition of Allen Naplan’s Al Sholsha D’Varim, and Vallandingham and his violinist wife, Adina, performed a breathtaking Postlude, Allegro, #2 in A Major for 2 Violins by Felix Mendelssohn.

At the celebration banquet, where home-grown garden flowers adorned the parish hall and Southern Maryland delicacies overflowed on tables set forth by the Ladies Mite – who claim roots in Civil War days – parishioners Richard and Mary Posey, clothed colorfully in 1661 period dress, entertained the crowd by fluting the dance music of Old Durham’s ancestors.

The high spirits flowed out of the meeting place and onto the parish grounds, where the motorcycle cavalcade was preparing to depart.

“Thank you for escorting our Presiding Bishop,” the rector’s wife, Betty MacDonald, told the riders.

“Thank you for inviting us. It was an honor,” said Mike Wells, former deputy chief of security for Air Force One. And with a roar of “some serious iron,” the Presiding Bishop was off, and another chapter in Christ Church’s 350-year-old history book came to an end.