Shuttered to in-person worship and events since March 2020, Marsh Chapel resumed on-premises services August 22 in advance of this Sunday’s Matriculation service. Photo by Cydney Scott

University News

Marsh Chapel Reopens to In-Person Worship, Events

August 22 was the first Sunday the congregation gathered in community since March 2020

Something unusual happened last Sunday at Marsh Chapel when the Rev. Robert Hill welcomed his flock to the interdenominational 11 am worship.

People were sitting in the pews to listen.

The moment marked the long-awaited resumption of in-person attendance, ending the all-virtual worship forced by the pandemic starting in March 2020. Marsh’s annual Matriculation service welcoming new students will also be in person this Sunday, August 29, at 11 am, kicking off an autumn of regular Sunday gatherings and special liturgies and events.

“After 18 months in diaspora, we are home, home again,” Hill rejoiced at the start of last Sunday’s service.

Still, the virus’ Delta variant, raging across Massachusetts and the nation, will circumscribe the reopening. Congregants must wear masks and are asked to be vaccinated, and Sunday childcare and post-worship refreshments remain suspended for now. 

“We hope to get back to them soon,” Hill tells BU Today, “but we are taking one step at a time.” There will be no capacity limits or social distancing by pew, he adds, per the Chapel’s adherence to BU’s COVID safety protocols.

In his August 17 newsletter, announcing the return to in-person attendance, Hill included a cautionary note: “All this and more must of course be described with our ever-present favorite adverb, ‘tentatively,’ given current conditions and potential changes thereof.”

Even so, one congregant who relies on technology to hear Marsh worship (which is broadcast on the internet and WBUR, BU’s NPR station) cheered the newsletter’s announcement. A New Jersey executive assistant attorney general and member of Marsh’s advisory board emailed Hill, writing that he and his family “look forward to coming home to worship” when next in Boston.

In addition to Matriculation and Sunday worship, Marsh’s planned fall events include the resumption of first-Sundays Eucharist on September 5; a special liturgy on the morning of Saturday, September 11, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks; an outdoor catered luncheon and the ordination of Jessica Chicka (STH’07,’11,’17), the University chaplain for international students, on September 12, when she’ll preach; a fall sermon series, Questions of Faith, beginning on September 19; the first of three autumn Sundays with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach on September 26; and the Class of 2020’s Baccalaureate service October 3, postponed from last year by COVID. (October 3 is the month’s first Sunday, but there will be no Eucharist at the Baccalaureate.)

The Chapel will also host weddings, memorials, and other services in the fall, to be detailed on Marsh’s website. “We had a tidal wave, an avalanche of things that we haven’t been doing for 18 months,” Hill says.

Resuming on-premise worship before the big Matriculation event was an intentional dress rehearsal, Hill says. “We haven’t been doing this for 18 months, so we’re a little rusty. This [was] a kind of a preseason game or a shakedown cruise, a chance to work out some of the kinks.”

It is likely that weekday activities at Marsh, such as tai chi, Buddhist meditation, and yoga, will be held in person while also continuing on Zoom, which expanded participation during the pandemic. While “our full, in-person programming at Marsh will recommence,” Hill vows, “there will also be some hybridity, if I can use that word. We just don’t quite know yet how we’re going to do that.

“In what we do in religious life, real presence is the name of the game. One of the dangers of Zoom is that it can be a place where some things go to die, like nuance. Like humor. Like serendipity. Like physicality, body language, real presence.”

The first hymn the congregation sang together last Sunday was Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise, which, even in times of trouble, gives thanks for “thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above.”