{"id":26,"date":"2016-07-06T13:08:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T13:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/?page_id=26"},"modified":"2025-08-01T13:42:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:42:18","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/?page_id=26","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"StAlban200w\"St Alban\u2019s was established in 1900 when Ilford was a very different place. In the early 1900s Ilford was a growing early \u201ccommuter-belt\u201d and a lot of new housing brought about the need for a new church, hence we were founded to meet the needs of the burgeoning population. We began as a daughter church within the Parish of Great Ilford and subsequently became a separate Parish. Since our foundation Ilford has undergone many changes.\u00a0 Ilford is now a \u201chub\u201d for the outer East End, with good commercial and travel networks, and people from across the globe have been drawn to make their lives and homes here. Most people living in the geographical Parish of St Alban\u2019s are of non-British heritage, the vast majority coming from the Indian sub-continent, with many also coming from Africa and the eastern countries of Europe.
\nIn consequence, many of our people come to us from outside the geographical area of the Parish boundaries but we are blessed to have amongst us Christians from every corner of the world, many of whom have recently moved into South Ilford. We aim to be a \u201cmeeting place\u201d for all people regardless of background or personal circumstances.\u00a0 Everyone who comes to us is accorded the dignity of a person made in the image of God.<\/p>\n

St Alban\u2019s offers a welcome to all who seek to know the truth of God as revealed in the Scriptures, in the person of Jesus Christ and in the teachings of the Church.\u00a0 As such we adhere to the traditions of the Western Church, first delivered to St Peter and the Apostles, and we remain obedient to the teachings of the wider Catholic Church.\u00a0 That means in practice that we believe that only men are chosen by God to be priests and that marriage must remain only between a man and a woman.<\/p>\n

St Alban\u2019s has taken steps to ensure that the Apostolic heritage that we believe in is not compromised by questionable developments within the Church of England, namely, the ordination of women as priests and the consecration of women as bishops.\u00a0 To safeguard that we have sought and received the care of the Bishop of Richborough, who provides us with the assured oversight we need.<\/p>\n

We extend our love, respect and charity to all who have received office in the Church of England, regardless of gender, but we must seek to uphold the promise given to us by the Church of England that those who dissent in conscience from the ordination of women as priests and bishops have an \u201cequal and honoured\u201d place in the Church\u00a0which is our shared heritage and that we too are \u201cloyal Anglicans.\u201d We hope and pray that we can flourish mutually for the sake of building the Kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Alban\u2019s was established in 1900 when Ilford was a very different place. In the early 1900s Ilford was a growing early \u201ccommuter-belt\u201d and a lot of new housing brought about the need for a new church, hence we were founded to meet the needs of the burgeoning population. We began as a daughter church within the Parish of Great Ilford and subsequently became a separate Parish. Since our foundation Ilford has undergone many changes.\u00a0 Ilford is now a \u201chub\u201d for the outer East End, with good commercial and travel networks, and people from across the globe have been drawn to make their lives and homes here. Most people living…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-26","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1346,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/26\/revisions\/1346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stalbansilford.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}