St Gregory's of Nyssa Episcopal Church

As with previous Sundays, this morning five of us decided to visit another notable church in the San Francisco area.  Today we chose St Gregory's of Nyssa.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this church, it is a relatively new church having only built their worship space in 1995.  The worship space is designed specifically for dancing and unaccompanied singing.  We arrived early and walked around the worship space, taking in all the brightly colored icons painted on the walls.

In total there are 89 "dancing" saints painted on the walls.  The largest is Jesus, the Lord of the Dance.  All of the saints have gold halo's except 1 which is Desmond Tutu.  The icons repainted in the walls of the rotunda which is also where the altar is.  

The service on any Sunday is a service in motion.  The service begin in the rotunda with the opening hymn and collect.  Then the congregation "dances" into the seated space (pictured below)

In this section of the worship space, the liturgy of the word takes place.  Today was special because there was a set of twins being baptized.  When it was time for the baptism, the entire congregation danced outside to the baptismal font (pictured below).

baptismal font

After the baptism, we walked into the rotunda, where once again, we started a liturgical dance.  The priest then began the Holy Eucharist.  Once the elements were consecrated, the priests walked through the congregation offering the host.  Then all members of the congregation passed the cup among each other.  The final piece of the service was once again a liturgical dance around the altar.


Once the service was completed, the altar was cleared of liturgical items and the entire rotunda was turned into coffee hour where the altar served as the table.

The altar during coffee hour

I have to say that St. Gregory's is a welcoming community.  When you first walk in, you are required to put a name tag on.  The color of the ink tells "regulars" whether you have attended before or not.  If you haven't people are quick to come over and explain how the service is going to take place and what to expect.

The presider's chair

Looking into the rotunda from the seating area.  The lectern is in the center of the photo