EXETER’S DEAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1935, Page 8

EXETER’S DEAN

ANCIENT CEREMONIES RESTORED EXETER, February 4. Ancient ceremony and symbolism marked the installation yesterday afternoon of Dr. S. C. Carpenter as Dean of the Cathedral Church. Not within living memory can the Cathedral have witnessed such splendour of colour as that which marked the gathering of the whole Cathedral body before the High Altar for the singing of the Te Deum. With the Bishop in their midst as “elder brother,” the full chapter, which includes all the prebendaries, together with the vicars choral, were vested in magnificent copes of every hue. Great pains had been taken to restore ancient custom and precedent, with the result that ceremonies which had fallen out of use a hundred years and more ago were revived. The primitive custom, for instance, by which the Dean, from the time of Stephen Langton, was always elected from the 24 prebendaries who constitute the Great Chapter, was restored by the Dean designate, being first made a prebendary of the Cathedral and a member of the’Bishop’s “familia.” This was done in the early morning at the High Altar, when the Bishop celebrated Holy Communion and, after the Nicene Creed, collated the new prebendary. At the later ceremony Dr. Carpenter was first installed in the lowest place as prebendary and then, at the words “Domine. ascende superius" (Sir. go up higher) he ascended to the decanal stall.