|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 5 December 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Thomians carol-in season right-royally today by Karel Roberts Ratnaweera The great Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols with which the Thomians have been traditionally heralding the Christmas season for more than half a century, will be held today in the hallowed Chapel of the Transfiguration, S. Thomas College, Mt. Lavinia. The Festival is always held on the first Sunday in December before the college closes for the Christmas holidays. This evening at 6.00 p.m., as a winter sun - after all, we are seven and something degrees North of the Equator-sinks below the horizon, the Anglican clergy, headed by His Lordship the Bishop of Colombo the Rt. Rev. Dulip de Chickera, decked out in ceremonial robes, will gather at the Great West Door of the chapel as the college's Music Director and one of this country's greatest organists, Russel Bartholomeusz, plays softly in the loft, leading to the great Processional Hymn, Once in Royal David's City, the first verse always sung by the best boy soprano in the choir. The sight that meets the eye as the vast congregation files out onto the steps of this great chapel,is a brilliant one. As the Service proceeds inside the chapel,non-Christian Thomians perform their own form of obeisance to their great institution by lighting hundreds of oil lamps which they ring the college quadrangle with, the letters STC picked out in jets adding a scintillating backdrop to the whole scene. This year,2004, marked an MoU between two of the greatest educational institutions in Asia, if not the world, so that as everyone files out, Thomians and Royalists will wish each other Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Peace on Earth to Men of Goodwill. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
