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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
Revd Dr Ayla Lepine met with curator and art historian Alayo Akinkugbe for a conversation about justice, beauty and hope expressed in Che Lovelace’s paintings and Cugoano’s memorial.
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round cultural programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us
Your donation will help us restore our garden in Piccadilly as part of The Wren Project, making it possible for us to welcome over 300,000 people from all faiths and walks of life seeking tranquillity and inspiration each year.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
Hear from Deborah Colvin as she deliberates on Student Sunday.
I’ve just discovered that the third Sunday in February has been designated Student Sunday since 1898, making it one of the oldest ‘special’ Sundays in the calendar. This is late in the day for me, considering I’ve been a teacher for the past 30 years. Nevertheless, I offer belated honour and respect to every student – those for whom formal learning is a primary identity or stage of life, and all the rest of us engaging with life’s learnings, however they find us. And whoever knows what the learning is going to be until it’s happening!
For example, by chance last week I was catapulted out of my comfort zone and into a seat at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane to see ‘Frozen: the Musical’. I would not have sought out this experience. I was somehow kidnapped by agents of change, and suddenly there I was, tightly packed in with two little girls and their gran. They were unknown to me before I landed in my seat way, way up high, but we quickly became a sort of audience-unit, with one child tucked up against me, packet of sweets open on our shared chair-arm, conversation flowing. I really didn’t know the story beforehand apart from a vague appreciation that the song ‘Let it Go’ is about expressing your superpower, but I left the show with a whole new take on the mutuality and saving power of love – in this instance between sisters.
It’s been said that inquiry is an icon of God. So a student-heart and exploratory attitude paradoxically sets us on the road to both more knowing and the ineffable. And once on the road, there is the sustained application required for deep inquiry. St James’s Music Scholars remind me of this each week when they sing and play beautiful music for us, sharing the fruits of many years of commitment to excellence in their art. In turn, they gain experience and learn more about liturgical music. This Student Sunday they will sing a Ralph Vaughan Williams arrangement of ‘Deck Thyself, My Soul with Gladness’. I’m looking forward to their company on the road.
