Sects Appeal
Washington City Paper's guide to alternative Christian enlightenment
Cover Story
How do you celebrate Easter Sunday at St. Matthew’s Cathedral? With more. “Oh no, it won’t be regular,” says Monsignor Ronald Jameson, describing this coming Sunday’s musical accompaniment. “There will definitely be more: more instruments, more choir members, more polyphonic music.”
“It’s an extremely important feast day,” says Jameson. “We do it up.”
There will also be more people. “Other than Good Friday itself, it’s the most crowded day of the year,” reveals Jameson. “At the 10 o’clock and 11:30 [a.m.] services, people are literally standing on Rhode Island Avenue.”
Big turnouts are a common theme among the mainstream faiths. “We can seat about 385 people, and we usually get pretty close to that. We also get overflow from the [National] Cathedral,” says Jane Volkema, parish administrator for St. Alban’s Episcopal. “We make room; everybody just sits a little closer together, although we have to go by [the] fire code.”
That means things are going to be a little tight on Sunday. It might be hard for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, but it will be even harder to find a parking space in Georgetown. Once inside a church, you’re likely to wind up shoehorned between crying babies and old ladies with no clear view of the ecclesiastical action. And when it comes to getting that post-service cup of coffee, you had better hope they borrowed those carafes from the marriage at Cana.
But it’s OK. There are alternatives.
And here, we’re not talking about the traditional tabernacles. Washington, D.C., is full of churches. There are Catholic churches, Episcopal churches, and Orthodox churches—not to mention the mosques, synagogues, and gurdwaras.... Continued 
Issue of Apr. 6 - 12, 2007
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