Episcopalians are invited to enhance their Good Friday devotion by attending a sacred performance of music devoted to this solemn day. The concert is being given in support of the 103 years of the Good Friday Offering, which assists churches, medical programs, and schools in the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

“This Lent, the need is almost unfathomable,” writes Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe in a letter to Episcopal churches. “We do not know what the political future of the Holy Land will be; but whatever the future, our siblings in Christ in The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East will continue to serve God’s people.”

The concert—an encore presentation recorded in the spring of 2024 at Christ and St. Luke’s Church, Norfolk, in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia—will air online at noon and 7 p.m. ET April 18 on The Episcopal Church’s Facebook page and website.  Viewers will have the opportunity to make donations to the offering during the event.

The Good Friday Offering, often collected during Good Friday liturgies, was first gathered in 1922 by The Episcopal Church to support Anglican ministries in the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East that were impacted by the devastation of World War I, the Spanish flu pandemic, and social and political unrest affecting Armenian Christians, among others in that region.

Over a century later, the Good Friday Offering supports ministry in a wide variety of places, including al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which has continued to provide essential health care services in the midst of war; St. George’s Anglican Episcopal Church in Baghdad, Iraq, and its medical center; an eye clinic at Christ Church in Yemen; All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Damascus, Syria; and All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beirut, Lebanon.

Find information about ways to give and downloadable resources—in English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish—at iam.ec/goodfridayoffering.

“It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the human suffering we have witnessed in the Holy Land, but with a gift to the Good Friday Offering, we can help The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East turn despair into hope for thousands of God’s people across their region,” Bishop Rowe writes.

For more information, contact Archdeacon Paul Feheley, Middle East partnership officer, at pfeheley@episcopalchurch.org or (212) 716-6222.