The St Patrick's-tide celebrations in Armagh for the millennium will be marked by a visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey. He will preach in St Patrick's Cathedral on Friday at Evensong and the following day will be the main speaker at a Church of Ireland conference entitled "Into the new Millennium".
The conference, which is being hosted by the Diocese of Armagh, will be attended by bishops, clergy and laity from throughout the Church of Ireland, and by leaders of the main Christian denominations on the island. It will seek to discuss the way ahead for the Church of Ireland.
Elsewhere, the patronal festival of the national saint will be marked in a variety of ways. In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the Dean, Dr Robert MacCarthy, will be the preacher at a Festival Eucharist which will be broadcast by RTE Radio.
There will be a celebration of the Eucharist in St Patrick's Memorial Church, Saul, at which the Bishop of Down, the Right Rev Harold Miller, will preach, and this will be followed by a pilgrimage to Down Cathedral. The Bishop of Cork, the Right Rev Paul Colton, will preach at the Civic Service in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, from where, later in the day, the Mothers' Union Millennium Pilgrimage, which will end in Armagh on March 25th, will depart.
Today, Affirming Catholicism Ireland will have a Quiet Afternoon in St Mary's Abbey Church, Ardee, where the conductor will be the Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, the Very Rev John Paterson. In the Deanery of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the cathedral and the Irish School of Ecumenics will host a conference on ecumenism which is intended for all Christians who are committed to the work of unity, reconciliation and peace in Ireland.
Tomorrow morning RTE will broadcast a Lenten liturgical sequence from the Church of Ireland Theological College, devised by the Chaplain of Trinity College, Dr Alan McCormack, and the first-year ordinands. BBC Radio Ulster will carry a service from the Church of the Resurrection, Belfast, led by the Chaplain of Queen's University, the Rev Andrew Foster.
In Dublin the first in a Lenten series of addresses in St John's Church, Sandymount, on "Servants of the Church" will be given by Ms Valerie Beatty, assistant secretary to the General Synod, while in St Patrick's Cathedral the third in a series of millennium addresses will be given by Sister Cecilia Clegg, Irish School of Ecumenics. The Archbishop of Dublin has requested that a special collection for Mozambique be made in all the churches of the united dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough.
In the afternoon, in Cork's North Cathedral, the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, will preach at the Peace Service, while in Belfast a former bishop of Cork, Dr Samuel Poyntz, will preach in St Anne's Cathedral at a memorial service for Canon John Nowlan.
The first of a Lent 2000 series of addresses on the Apostles' Creed in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, will be given at Evensong by the former bishop of Cashel, the Right Rev Noel Willoughby, and at 8 p.m. the cathedral will host the annual thanksgiving service for the gift of sport.
On Tuesday evening in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the annual Joe Coady memorial lecture will be given by Dr Ann Buckley, University of Cambridge, on "Music from the Monasteries and Cathedrals of Ireland".
On Wednesday evening in St Mary's Cathedral, the Right Rev Edward Darling, Bishop of Limerick, will ordain the Rev Patricia Hanna to the priesthood.