Faith and Chaplaincy

Services during Full Term - all are welcome

Mondays 

8.30am Morning Prayer

5.30pm Holy Communion

Tuesdays

8.30am Morning Prayer

5.30pm Sung Compline, Motet

Wednesday

8.30am Morning Prayer

Thursdays

8.30am Morning Prayer

Fridays

8.30am Morning Prayer

1.15pm Holy Communion

Sundays

5.30pm Choral Evening Service (Evensong, except week 2, Choral Eucharist)

Details of this term's services and preachers can be found by clicking below.

Pembroke College Chapel Choir is at the forefront of music in Pembroke, regularly performing two weekly services on Sundays and Tuesdays.

It is an inclusive and friendly group of singers that also enjoy free meals after services and social events across the year. There are both auditioned and non-auditioned spaces, and people of all faiths and none are still welcome to sing.

The choir worked incredibly hard under the direction of the organ scholars after Covid to reintroduce choral music in a range of styles to services, and by the end of 2022 the choir was the largest it had been in over a decade.

In addition to the two weekly services, the choir sings for extra events, including Christmas services and concerts, and special College occasions. In Hilary term 2022, the choir sang the Fauré Requiem in a memorial service for Damon Wells, our Chapel’s benefactor, and went on a trip to Coventry Cathedral with the Harris Manchester College Choir, organized by the organ scholars. 

What our choir members say: 

“Chapel choir was one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of my second year. After over a year of not singing in groups due to the pandemic, it was absolutely invaluable to be able to work on challenging music in a supportive environment. It felt like a community of students all working together to rebuild the musical tradition at Pembroke. The trip to Coventry cathedral was particularly memorable. The building is stunning, and thanks to our senior organ scholar Alastair also being organ scholar at Harris Manchester, we were able to sing with them - it's always a fun challenge adapting to new voices. I also really appreciated how included I was as a wheelchair user, both at Coventry and in choir rehearsals, performances and socials.  Oxford has a lot of stairs, especially in its religious buildings, and the organ scholars especially made a big effort for me.”  

“Joining the choir was a great way to meet new people in Pembroke as well as an opportunity to feel even more a part of the college community. One of my favourite things about choir is the passion and drive that comes from the students, be that the conductor, the organists, or the singers. We are all motivated by each other to participate in an integral part of college life, and I find that very inspiring.” 

“After losing out on 2 years of music, singing and services due to the pandemic, I was so excited to meet new people and explore new repertoire (as well as get my sight reading back up to scratch…). The Sunday evening service became my favourite part of the week and provided me with lots of opportunities to share my passion for music with other students - something I hadn’t been able to enjoy since I left school. I’m so grateful for the experience I had in second year and miss it so much now that I am studying on my year abroad; any chance I get I am back in Oxford to jump into the weekly evensong!"

If you’re interested in joining the choir – come along and see (hear) for yourself, or speak to the Music Director, Mark Wilson, or one of the organ scholars).

The ornate but intimate chapel has been somewhere people have gathered since 1732 – and, perhaps somewhat romantically, there is a sense of continuity with students, staff and visitors who have met there in joy and sorrow throughout three centuries. It embodies Eliot’s phrase: ‘a place where prayer has been valid’ (T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding). Damon Wells fully restored the chapel, and endows the Chaplain’s stipend, and therefore it bears his name by authority of a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The chapel is used regularly by the College Christian Union , it is a regular place of worship for Oxford’s Armenian Community, and where Catholic Mass is celebrated. The Armenian Martyrs icon (consecrated by the Armenian Bishop) and the seventeenth-century statue of St Margaret of Antioch (blessed by the Catholic community) are important symbols of a living and growing place of significance for a network of Pembrokians, as well as many beyond our walls. The chapel is a beautiful context for baptisms, weddings, funerals and memorial services for students, staff and alumni – please contact the chaplain about these services in the first instance.

If you’re interested in a fuller historical description of the building, please see A Gentle History of the Damon Wells Chapel, Pembroke College, Oxford (by late Chaplain Emeritus Rev Dr John Platt and the late alumnus Brian Wilson), available from the College priced £15 + post & packaging.