Welcome to the Vergers Voice, the official news blog of the Vergers Guild of the Episcopal Church. Also known as the VGEC, we are located on the web at vergers.org and facebook.com/vergerguild the #1 online resources for vergers world-wide.

For information about submitting news and announcements to the blog, click HERE or contact [email protected].

Friday, July 25, 2014

Beg, Borrow & Steal

This page is from the Annotated Order of Worship for the Great Vigil of Easter as celebrated at Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, TN. (Annotated Orders of Worship contain the entire service just as is provided to parishioners with additional directions for movements, timings, and other (stage) directions for the clergy, LEMs and acolytes.)

By Eileen Brightwell Hicks with Bill Cox

Have you ever been asked to provide a ritual fire of a certain color for an Easter Vigil? Did you know that your VGEC Document Library has a customary that details how to start and color a ritual fire? Thanks to Dick Johnson, Head Verger, Trinity Episcopal Church, The Woodlands TX you will be prepared next time without having to do much research. Using the library, you can beg, borrow, and steal from other vergers.

Dick and Bill Cox of St. John's Episcopal Church in Austin, TX both are masters of the tool we all should be using to document how we conduct the liturgy in our own parish church (or cathedral) - the "Customary".

As vergers, we are familiar with the rubrics that are inserted throughout the Book of Common Prayer. These rubrics, in small italic type and, and, in some versions, printed in red, inform us of the requirements and boundaries for our worship services---what we can or cannot do in the course of public worship.

The rubrics do offer a bit of leeway---they contain quite a few “if”s and “may”s in their statements. This leeway is resolved by local “customaries” – details on how a specific church or parish does specific things. Every church has customaries---unfortunately, they are often known only by a few and are not written down. Liturgical customaries can and do cover topics as diverse as “How do we organize a procession for a bishop’s visitation?” or “When and how do we light/extinguish the candles?” or “How is the Easter Vigil celebrated?” Furthermore, customaries (they may also be called “workflows”, “procedures”, or "SOPs") may cover things far beyond our worship services. “How do we compile and publish the weekly bulletin?” or “How is the plate offering counted and prepared for bank deposit?” might be typical topics for non-liturgical customaries.

Customaries are helpful in many ways in your church. Customaries will provide consistency in the worship services and document the routines that are familiar to a congregation. This can be particularly important if a parish does not have full-time clergy support and must rely instead on supply priests. They also serve as a training tool when new members join groups such as the Lay Servers, Acolytes, or Altar Guild.

Unfortunately, relatively few churches have properly documented their customaries or their customaries may not be complete. We vergers have this great resources available to help us: the Document Library. The library includes many customaries that have been contributed by VGEC members over the years. Visit the library and review the customaries that are available. You will find something that can help you and your church! So beg, borrow, and steal from the best-your fellow vergers! Even better, if your church has documented customaries, please consider sharing them so we can all beg, borrow, and steal from you.


Two additional references for writing a customary are A Priest's Handbook and The Book of Occasional Services. These books provide specifics which are not covered in the rubrics within the Book of Common Prayer.

If you have questions about uploading customaries to or downloading from the VGEC Document Library, contact Eileen Brightwell Hicks, your VGEC Document Library Manager, at [email protected].






Register for the 2014 Annual Conference being held September 25th through 28th in Burlington, Ontario by clicking on the big red button below. You'll have a great time and bring home a ton of memories that cannot be had any other way. Registration fees increase on Friday, August 1st so register today!
Register online today and call 905.681.5400 for hotel reservations with VERG as the discount code!

Abstract: Just what is a "customary" anyway, and what use would a customary be at our church? How do I start writing a customary for  Holy Week, a Bishop's visitation or Christmas Eve? Your questions answered this week in "Beg, Borrow & Steal".

Recently, we've published stories about vergers from Sweden and Italy. What's happening back at home in your verger ministry? We'd like to publish your verger story, history, observations & experiences. 
Please send your article ideas, or fully developed stories or news items about your own verger ministry or one nearby to [email protected]

Read more blog posts at vergersvoice.org.


Friday, July 18, 2014

A Verger Goes to New York City

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City

By David Todd, Verger at St. Richard's Episcopal Church, Round Rock, TX

David Todd, named outstanding student for 2014 at Texas A&M University, and Verger for Lay Eucharistic Ministers at St. Richard's Episcopal Church in Round Rock, TX, was in New York City this past weekend. He reports on his experience visiting the largest cathedral in the United States, and by square feet, the largest in the world.

"This week I visited New York City for the first time to see my sister. She lives very close to the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. I decided I would visit the cathedral and attend Morning Prayer.

"I arrived quite early and found myself alone under the 124 foot height of the nave. This cathedral is truly massive. If you have not been there, make it #1 on your "bucket list". Under construction since 1892, the Cathedral’s highest point reaches 232 feet and has an interior foot print of 121,000 square feet."

"As I stood there looking around, I remembered from a college art history class that cathedrals such as this one were built on such a large scale to convey the power of God and the Church to the masses. Standing there, I kind of felt like it worked. I felt quite intimidated and small; even lonely. It did not seem inviting at all, which a church should be. Right?"

"Soon a handful of other people arrived and welcomed me with open arms. Morning Prayer was held in one of the absolutely beautiful chapels. The service was small, intimate and I was a part of it. I no longer felt intimidated and lonely. In a little nook of that massive structure I celebrated and worshiped God with complete strangers from other cities, states and countries."

"After the service, I found a small bakery across the street to have coffee. As I sat there, watching the church and the area around it come to life, I thought about the loneliness and the "togetherness" I had experienced that morning. I thought about the thousands that have been involved over the life of the Cathedral to bring it into existence and the love that pours out into the community around it through the multitude of services offered and events held there. It is really not a lonely place at all. I was the one that had made it that way because of my own smallness."

"This Cathedral does convey God’s power, just not in the way my professor described it. Such is the power of God that I was reminded by this place it does not matter that I am small because the people inside remind me that where ever we go, we are not alone. We are a part of the family. We all belong to in Jesus. This to me is at the heart of being a Verger."





Register for the 2014 Annual Conference being held September 25th through 28th in Burlington, Ontario by clicking on the big red button below. You'll have a great time and bring home a ton of memories that cannot be had any other way. Registration fees increase in two weeks so register today.
Register online today and call 905.681.5400 for hotel reservations with VERG as the discount code!

Abstract: An experienced litigator, who grew up in the Diocese of Dallas as an Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian goes to the Big Apple for the first time. Find out where he landed for Morning Prayer and the extremes of emotion that he experienced.

Please send your story ideas, anecdotal notes on your verger experiences or fully developed stories about your own verger ministry to [email protected]. There are more than a thousand stories out there. We'd like to publish yours.

Status of Verger's Voice Team Building Campaign: Two on board. So raise your hand to be the final Verger's Voice publication team member (for this time of asking) who will help find and contribute stories, shepherd our story contributors, envision ways to improve our blog publications and take on new themes as we expand our coverage. Write and tell me about your background and how you'd like to be a part of The Verger's Voice team. Use my Verger's Voice email address: [email protected].

Friday, July 11, 2014

Greetings from Rome



Edoardo Fanfani, verger at Rome's All Saints Church with Assistant Curate: Fr. Alaric Lewis at evening prayer

By Ken Holloway with Edoardo Fanfani and Bill Gleason

When he was proprietor of the Vergers Guild Shop, Bill Gleason "met" hundreds of vergers. Bill recalls "One such acquaintance, Edoardo Fanfani, contacted the shop in 2013 ordering a VGEC Chimere and Basic Virge. He also joined the VGEC as a Life Member the same day. Edoardo serves as a verger at All Saint's Anglican Church in Rome."

Enjoying their first year of retirement, Bill and his wife, Helen, recently visited Rome. Bill reports, "As we got to Rome last Sunday evening, I posted on FaceBook our arrival there. Very shortly thereafter, Edoardo liked and messaged me, inviting us to a Choral Evensong on Thursday Evening, and a Eucharist on Tuesday at Noon. I contacted him back immediately, and we made arrangements to meet at the Obelisk with the Bernini Elephant in Piazza della Minerva on Tuesday. We were leaving on Wednesday morning so we could only meet on Tuesday. He is is the midst of studying for High School exams, and needed to do that rather than have lunch after the Eucharist. So we met only for about one and a half hours and then parted ways."

Now 19, Edoardo has graduated from High School (five years in Italy). He has a one year sabbatical ahead, still in Rome, and then hopes to go to university in England. 


I asked Eduardo to tell us about himself and his ministry. This is his excellent reply:

"I am currently a verger at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Rome (the only such verger), and I became member of the Guild in spring 2013. All Saints’ Church – home of the Archdeaconry of Italy and Malta - was built in the 1880s in the English neighborhood of the eternal city (near the Spanish steps) to cater for the ever-growing Anglo-Saxon community, along with the American Episcopal Church of St Paul’s within the Walls are our Anglican homes here in Rome."

"A chapel already existed outside the walls, known as The Granary Chapel, but was replaced by G. E. Street’s masterpiece when the unification of Italy made it possible for non-Roman Catholic churches to be built inside the city walls. All Saints has a beautiful Victorian, yet Italian, feel; of special interest are the stained glass windows by Clayton & Bell, and the lovely nineteenth century altar frontals. Beautiful above all is our gothic white travertine spire that is a delightful surprise in the midst of so many baroque domes. Our chaplain is Fr. Jonathan Boardman, whose distinctive northern Yorkshire accent is probably the chief characteristic of the parish. Liturgy at All Saints is classical Anglican high church – not so different on a smaller scale from what you would find in an Episcopal parish in New York, Boston or Chicago: incense when appropriate, and lots of chanting."

"I discovered the ministry of verger for the first time when the choir of Westminster Abbey came to Rome for a special visit on the Feast of Saint Peter (who is also the Abbey’s patron). I was at once impressed by the importance of the ministry, in terms of liturgical help - a sort of parish (or cathedral) guardian who knows everything about the institution itself! I had previously met other vergers, at Saint Thomas church in New York for example, but this experience especially enchanted me. I realized how important it would be to have such a ministry even in a small Church of England parish in Rome. My “vocation” to this ministry also came through my priestly vocation and my passion for High Church liturgy. Accordingly, I began to search online for information about vergers, and being Episcopalian I came across the Vergers Guild of the Episcopal Church - which seemed the best way to go! I joined this guild and began to study for this new ministry, beginning for a few months at the Episcopal parish here in Rome – the beautiful St. Paul’s within the Walls (Spring 2013) – before moving to All Saints’ Anglican Church, to which I now have a deep attachment. With the help of Fr. Jonathan, the chaplain, I learned a great deal about how to be a verger in the Church of England. I began with Choral Evensong (which is still my favorite service), then Festal Eucharist, and finally on the recent Trinity Sunday I verged the Archbishop of Canterbury himself (I had thankfully had practice with other bishops on other occasions)! Oh Rome! This wonderful ministry has given me constancy, and a strong sense of spirituality and closeness of the church to my troubled life - a life that seemed destroyed four years ago with the loss of my beloved mother, while I was still at high school. Things have not been easy … but my faith did help me, and now I am doing this ministry for which I am really thankful. Not many 19 - year old young men can claim to have met the Pope, or verged the Archbishop, leader of this our beloved communion!"

"But these are not the real fruits of this ministry in Rome. The real blessings are things such as welcoming people, and making them feel considered and loved; helping those who are not confident with a formal Anglican service; those who would like to learn more about why that specific stained glass window of St. Cecilia is there, or if the Queen is our “head”; closing one’s eyes and listening to the stirring and ancient words of the Coverdale psalter sung to beautiful Anglican Chant by MacFarren or Stanford! Just consider Psalm 96: “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”, while the incense brings you to heaven… these are the real joys! It has been a great year, and I do believe that through the grace of God many more will come! Many more people will enter those gothic doors and feel loved; many more will want to know who was the architect of the Church of England parish in Rome; many more will want to listen to beautiful Anglican chant - and will want to spy on the verger to see when to make the sign of the cross or when to bow at Choral Evensong!"

Thank you, God, for this - and thank you for this wonderful Guild of which I am part, My best greetings from Rome, Italy!

Edoardo, Verger at All Saints’Anglican Church, Rome





Register for the 2014 Annual Conference being held September 25th through 28th in Burlington, Ontario by clicking on the big red button below. You'll have a great time and bring home a ton of memories that cannot be had any other way.
Register online today and call 905.681.5400 for hotel reservations with VERG as the discount code!

Abstract: A gifted communicator. A well-traveled intellect. A nineteen year old verger at All Saints' Anglican Church in Rome. Having just graduated from high school in Rome, he will take a year's sabbatical before pursuing university in England. Meet Edoardo Fanfani and enjoy his inspiring story of a unique verger ministry.

Please send your story ideas, anecdotal notes on your verger experiences or fully developed stories about your own verger ministry to [email protected]. There are more than a thousand stories out there. We'd like to publish yours.

Wanted: A new Verger's Voice publication team member who will help find stories, write stories, interact with and help our story contributors, envision ways to improve our blog publications and take on new themes as we expand our coverage. Write and tell me about your background and how you'd like to be a part of The Verger's Voice team. Use my Verger's Voice email address: [email protected].

Position is still open. A couple of interested vergers have responded. Would like to hear from more of you. Maybe we can have a corps of reporters.


Friday, July 4, 2014

The Episcopal Church in Connecticut - God's Mission for Vergers

Sandee Bullock, Liturgical Verger, St. John's Episcopal Church, Niantic, CT,
The Rt. Rev. Laura Ahrens, Bishop Suffragan, The Episcopal Church in Connecticut,
and Richard Lammlin at St. John's, Niantic, for the installation of The Rev. Anthony Dinoto, Rector,
and Sandee's first service as a verger



By Ken Holloway with Richard Lammlin 

Chapter development was emphasized as a major objective at the VGEC 25th anniversary conference in Nashville in 2013 . The VGEC Chapter Development Committee is responsible for Diocesan Chapters of the VGEC. Responsibilities include developing materials and standard procedures for groups interested in starting a chapter, providing VGEC resources including contact information for vergers in a diocese for chapter planning, and providing ongoing support through communication and training. 

With respect to his VGEC Chapter Development Committee Chair role, I asked Rich Lammlin what was happening with vergers in Connecticut and what (chapter) organization movement existed there. He responded with this great summary of the verger ministry at work in Connecticut.

"Vergers are small in number in Connecticut; actually, there are only fifteen of us at my last count. I’d like to increase that number if I can because in my four years of experience, the ministry of a verger is of immense help to both clergy and laity."

"I recently had the pleasure of serving at the installation of the Rev. Anthony Dinoto who is the new rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Niantic. Although this is not my home parish, I had been asked to serve with our diocese’s newest verger, Sandee Bullock, for whom this would be her first service to serve in this capacity. Sandee is an old friend who had inquired about becoming a verger to the Rt. Rev. Laura Ahrens, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Church in CT, at a recent parish visitation. During a breakfast meeting that week, Bishop Ahrens asked me about coaching Sandee.
I told her that I'd be honored to do so. Sandee’s husband, Benn, had been a great help to me as I worked my way through the training course several years ago!"

"Sandee and I spoke several times about her interest and finally met, together with her soon-to-be new rector, The Rev. Anthony Dinoto. We spoke about what vergers do and how we can assist clergy in a variety of ways. I’m certain that almost every verger job description in the world is different – and that is what makes this ministry so much fun! The key is discerning, with one’s rector, how the role of a verger can best be put to use in that particular worship community. It was fitting, then, that Sandee’s first official service was at Father Dinoto's installation. It was a wonderful night filled with beautiful music, joyful worship, and great anticipation of new ministries and new beginnings for that parish."

"Sandee has also agreed to help me contact other vergers in Connecticut about gathering together to form a VGEC chapter for mutual assistance, fellowship and training. We have 168 Episcopal churches in Connecticut and we are all, like you, part and parcel of God’s mission – and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in God’s mission in this very special and fulfilling way."

"Connecticut is moving forward under the direction of our bishops and is currently in the process of re-imaging ourselves. You probably noticed that I did not refer to us as a “diocese”. That is intentional. We are now “The Episcopal Church in Connecticut.”


There is no doubt that Rich, Sandee and new Connecticut vergers who are installed in the next year or two could make a real mark in the liturgical lives of a large number of Episcopal families. Can you imagine installing just one verger at 50% of the Episcopal churches in Connecticut? We'd be adding 70+ vergers to our ministry and providing support and growth to about 80 Episcopal Churches and their 8000+ members who worship every week. Now consider what the resulting 85 Connecticut vergers could do in visiting with Episcopal rectors up to 50 miles from each border in the neighboring states (Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts), to talk about the verger ministry.

If you are thinking about starting or re-starting a VGEC chapter in your diocese, email our chapter developers at [email protected].

Register for the 2014 Annual Conference being held September 25th through 28th in Burlington, Ontario by clicking on the big red button below. You'll have a great time and bring home a ton of memories that cannot be had any other way.
Register online today and call 905.681.5400 for hotel reservations with VERG as the discount code!


Abstract: The vergers in Connecticut are about to make a major difference in the liturgical lives of Episcopalians in Connecticut and its neighboring states. Find out how the VGEC chapter development team is working in one of our most active dioceses.

Please send your story ideas, anecdotal notes on your verger experiences or fully developed stories about your own verger ministry to [email protected]. There are more than a thousand stories out there. We'd like to publish yours.

Wanted: A new Verger's Voice publication team member who will help find stories, write stories, interact with and help our story contributors, envision ways to improve our blog publications and take on new themes as we expand our coverage. Write and tell me about your background and how you'd like to be a part of  The Verger's Voice team. Use my Verger's Voice email address: [email protected].