Mariners’ Church of Detroit

On Sunday, November 12, 2006, Mariners’ Church will return to the old tradition of having a Great Lakes Memorial Service in the fall, marking the symbolic closing of the shipping season. This service will honor all of the many thousands of sailors who have lost their lives while serving on the Great Lakes. In returning to the tradition of “book-ending” the shipping season — Blessing of the Fleet in March, and Great Lakes Memorial in November - we are are also returning to our traditional Anglican liturgy for these services, serving Holy Communion to all Baptized adult Christians.

After thirty years of focusing exclusively on the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald in our November service, we are now able to broaden the scope of our Memorial because the Canadian Parliament has, at long last, passed the legislation requested by the Fitzgerald families protecting the ship and its entombed crew from intrusive exploration and exploitation.

The decision to put the Fitz into its historical context, amont the estimated 10,000 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, in no way diminishes our admiration and respect for the 29 crewmen who went down with their ship on the night of November 10, 1975. The “gales of November” claimed thousands of lives during the previous 300 years, and the crewmen of the Fitzgerald will not be the last to lose their lives on the Great Lakes. Before he died this past April, Bishop Ingalls, the Rector of Mariners’ Church for 41 years and the man who “rang the bell 29 times,” conferred with me and the family members who had been coming to the annual Fitzgerald service for decades, and we agreed that the time had come to make this change.

As loyal parishioners and friends of Mariners’ Church, you are welcomed and encouraged to return to this service. It will be a worshipful, dignified, liturgical service of remembrance and the Holy Eucharist. The Fitzgerald families are also welcome, as always, at Mariners’ Church. For those who wish to participate in a brief memorial service specifically honoring the crewmen of the Fitz, the Shipwreck Museum at Whitefisth Point will continue its 10-year tradition of reading the names of the crew and ringing the Fitzgerald bell. (This is the bell which was recovered from the ship in 1995 and was replaced with a duplicate bell, engraved with the names of the 29, to serve as a pertetual marker at their final resting place.)

We hope that you will join us in Mariners’ Church for our “new Tradition” of remembering the sailors for the Great Lakes in the context of our Anglican liturgy.

Richard W. Ingalls, Jr. (The Rev.)
(from the September/October 2006 Memorandum from the Rector)