The Episcopal Parish of St. John the Evangelist sits on a hilltop at 172 Main Street in Hingham, Massachusetts, where a stone church built in 1919 of locally quarried Weymouth granite looks out over the South Shore. Since 1883, generations of Hingham families have worshipped, been baptized, married, and buried their dead at St. John’s, and the parish today is known for its strong music program, three Sunday liturgies, robust formation for children and youth, and a wide-reaching network of outreach that stretches from a laundromat in Hull to a youth work camp in Appalachia.
Two Centuries of Worship on Main Street
Episcopal life in Hingham began with summer services in the 1820s, with the first regular gatherings held in Hingham Square over what is now Winston Flowers. In 1883 a small wooden church was erected on Main Street opposite Water Street, and the Rev. Charles Wells was appointed the first priest in charge.
In 1906, during the rectorship of the Rev. George Weld, the wooden building was moved across the street to the top of the hill, where the present building now stands. The federal style house next door, built in 1789, was acquired to serve as a rectory. A parish hall was added and the church was remodeled after a fire, with a bell tower added. In 1914, the present stone parish hall was erected, containing a gymnasium on the lower level.
The old wooden church was razed in 1919 and the present stone church built in its place. It was a gift of Mrs. Ezra Ripley Thayer in memory of her husband, who had been Dean of the Harvard Law School. The Rev. James Bullitt was rector when the building was completed, and the Rev. Daniel Magruder, rector from 1921 to 1951, is remembered for his dramatic flair and for the expansion of the church school and the establishment of a boys’ choir.
The Rev. John Gallop led the parish for twenty-eight years beginning in 1951, adding offices and classrooms in the mid-1950s along with a parking lot and the Memorial Garden for the burial of ashes. The Rev. Robert Edson served as rector for twenty-six years beginning in 1981, a tenure marked by a strong music program, formation for all ages, and two capital campaigns in 1996 and 2006 that refurbished the parish hall, classrooms, organ, and rectory. The Rev. Timothy Schenck was installed as the eighth rector in 2009 and served until 2022, overseeing a 2019 capital campaign that improved the sanctuary and other facilities. The parish’s ninth rector, the Rev. Edward Thornley, arrived in the summer of 2024.
Sunday Worship: Rite I at Eight, Rite II at Ten, S.W.5 at Five
St. John’s offers three Sunday liturgies, each with its own character. At 8 a.m. the congregation gathers for Holy Eucharist, Rite I, a traditional service in Elizabethan English without music. At 10 a.m. the principal liturgy of the day, Holy Eucharist, Rite II, is celebrated in contemporary language with the St. John’s Choir and organ. Both are followed by Coffee Hour in the parish hall, with lively conversation, light food, and plenty of coffee, tea, and lemonade for the children.
A third service returned to the calendar in recent months: S.W.5, Sunday Worship at 5, a more informal Eucharist celebrated in the Parish Hall with a mix of contemporary music and familiar hymns. The service alternates week to week between a shorter Rite II evening prayer and a fuller Eucharist.
Worship at St. John’s follows the Book of Common Prayer, a red book with a cross on the cover found in every pew, paired with the blue Hymnal. Ushers greet visitors at the door with a paper bulletin. The service has two main parts: the Liturgy of the Word, with readings, a psalm, a sermon, the Nicene Creed, prayers of the people, confession and absolution, the exchange of the peace, and announcements; and the Liturgy of the Table, with the Eucharistic Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the breaking of the bread, and communion.
All baptized Christians, regardless of age or denomination, are welcome to receive communion. Visitors who are not baptized are welcome to come forward and cross their arms over their chest to receive a blessing.
Wednesday Mornings in the Chapel
On Wednesdays during the program year, the Eucharist is celebrated at 10 a.m. in the Chapel. The last Wednesday of every month is a Healing Eucharist, Rite II. After the service, from 10:45 a.m. until noon, a group of parishioners gathers in the Thayer Room for Wednesday Community, an open time of fellowship, prayer, Bible study, and conversation that has become a weekly anchor for many in the parish.
What the First-Time Visitor Will Find
No one will give a visitor odd looks for standing when the congregation sits, or for sitting when others kneel. Liturgical worship is like a dance, the parish notes: once a guest learns the steps, the rhythm becomes familiar and the music changes. The congregation follows set forms week to week, which gives the liturgy a steady pulse across the seasons of the church year.
All baptized Christians are welcome to receive communion. Children are welcome to receive communion as soon as they are baptized, in keeping with the practice of the ancient church that the emphasis is placed upon baptism rather than upon confirmation or first communion as a later rite of passage. Brief, conversational training sessions about communion for young children are offered occasionally; the parish office can share when the next one is scheduled.
The 10 a.m. service is livestreamed through Facebook Live on the parish Facebook page, with rebroadcasts during the following week on the Hingham cable station. Visitors who fill out an online visitor’s card are warmly welcomed and connected with a member of the Welcome Ministry.
The Choir, the Choristers, and the Aeolian-Skinner Organ
Music has always played a central role in the life of St. John’s. The adult choir, the St. John’s Choristers for children in grades 3 through 8, and a Summer Choir all serve the liturgies. The parish also hosts an annual Choral Evensong and the Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols.
The instrument in the sanctuary is a three-manual organ built by the Aeolian-Skinner Company of Boston in 1965 and refurbished by Foley-Baker of Connecticut in 2008. Its stops include a 16-foot Gemshorn on the Great, a Viola Pomposa and 16-foot Bombarde on the Swell, a 16-foot Gedackt and Clarinet on the Choir, and a 32-foot Resultant on the Pedal, with twelve general pistons, Tutti, a settable Crescendo, and Sforzando. The organ refurbishment was part of a capital campaign led by the parish in 2006.
Monique Weiss Byrnes serves as Organist and Director of Music. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, she has directed children’s, RSCM, youth, and adult choirs in the Episcopal Church.
Children, Sunday School, and Youth Ministry
Sunday School meets every Sunday morning during the 10 a.m. service. Children gather at 9:45 a.m. and join their families in the church in time for communion. The program is open to all children ages 3 through grade 5.
From Pre-K through grade 2, the parish follows Godly Play, a Montessori-based curriculum in which children encounter the same sacred stories repeatedly over several years, each time accessing new layers of meaning as their language and thinking grow. From grades 3 through 5, the older Sunday School uses the Episcopal Children’s Curriculum, developed at Virginia Theological Seminary, which offers Bible stories alongside introductions to Episcopal Church history and practice. Children in grade 4 are typically presented with their own study Bibles.
Free nursery and toddler care is provided every Sunday during the 10 a.m. service and during special events, with paid adult professionals trained through the diocesan Safe Church program. The Nursery and Toddler rooms open at 9:45 a.m.
Middle School Youth Group, for grades 6 through 8, meets on Sunday evenings from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and combines service, fellowship, and faith formation. Confirmation class is offered for high school youth and meets on alternating Sundays from 5 to 6:30 p.m. from October through May, with the expectation that students will also attend Sunday worship. The High School Youth Group is open to all students in grades 9 through 12. Each summer, youth who have completed ninth grade and older take part in a weeklong trip to the hills of Appalachia with the Cohasset Appalachia Service Project, building and repairing homes for families who cannot do so themselves.
Alexis MacElhiney serves as the parish’s Sunday School Director and Youth Coordinator.
Adult Education and Spiritual Formation
The Adult Education program offers a steady calendar of talks, classes, and short courses on topics that have ranged from end-of-life planning to the history of monasticism to faith-based responses to climate change. Introductory classes are offered for those new to St. John’s and the Episcopal Church, including an Episcopal 101 course for adults preparing for confirmation or reception.
A Pastoral Care Team on Call Around the Clock
Any parishioner may call the priests at any time of day or night, seven days a week, in a pastoral crisis such as a death in the family, serious illness, an accident, or any other pastoral emergency. Whenever possible, a priest is called when someone is near death in order to administer Last Rites and pray with the family.
The Pastoral Care Team makes hospital and home visits, brings communion to those who are homebound, and offers the laying on of hands for healing when desired. Trained lay Eucharistic Visitors, licensed by the bishop and prepared through diocesan training, take the sacrament to parishioners who are hospitalized, homebound, or in nursing homes.
The clergy also offer Reconciliation of a Penitent for those who wish to make a private confession; house blessings for those who have moved into a new home; and brief services of thanksgiving for the birth of a child. The parish prayer list is updated monthly, with sections for parishioners and for friends and loved ones, and is printed in the entryway of the church and in the Sunday bulletin.
A Welcome Ministry Built on Shared Meals
St. John’s Welcome Ministry, co-chaired by Hilary Garzarelli and Devon Abts, treats welcome not as a one-time greeting but as a way of life together. Foyer Dinners gather small groups of about eight people for three relaxed meals across fall, winter, and spring, with a family-friendly option for households with children. The Welcome Walk brings newcomers and longtime members together for an all-ages, self-paced walk followed by snacks and fellowship. Decorating Nights for the parish’s Not-So-Spooky Haunted House give families a chance to lend their artistic talents to a community tradition.
Newcomers can sign up for Breeze, the parish’s online directory and communication system, to make online donations, join the directory, and keep up with the calendar.
Outreach from Laundry Love to the Appalachia Service Project
The Outreach Committee coordinates and promotes parish activities that care for those in need outside of St. John’s, distributing financial contributions in line with the vestry-allocated annual budget and connecting parishioners of all ages with volunteer opportunities. The committee meets around five times a year.
Laundry Love, a ministry begun in 2017 with a partner laundromat in Hull and expanded to a second location in Weymouth in 2019, sends volunteers to greet people, pay for their machines, and distribute cleaning supplies, allowing individuals and families to redirect what would have been laundry money toward food, medical care, transportation, and school supplies. Free., an ongoing ministry of St. John’s, provides menstrual hygiene products to anyone in need, addressing a gap in benefits that can otherwise force people to miss school or work.
Each year the parish prepares and serves dinners at the Epiphany School in Dorchester, sends youth to the Appalachia Service Project, hosts a week of the B-Safe summer program run by St. Stephen’s in Boston, and supports a backpack and school supply drive for the Quincy Family Resource Center, the Angel Tree at Christmas, an MLK meal packing event, the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace, and Homes for Our Troops. The parish also collects food for the Hingham Food Pantry, the Interfaith Social Services pantry, and the Weymouth Food Pantry, and contributes to Wellspring Multiservice Center in Hull (where the parish’s Diane Edson Fund supports ongoing programs in honor of the late Rev. Diane Edson), the Blue Hills Healthy Families network, and the Hingham Interfaith Pantry.
The Holiday Boutique, a signature fundraiser for more than two decades, brings together vendors offering homemade jam, handcrafted jewelry, and outdoor apparel, with proceeds directed in part to the Cohasset Appalachia Service Project.
Other Ministries that Sustain the Parish
Liturgical ministries at St. John’s include acolytes, the Altar Guild, chalice bearers, Eucharistic Visitors, the Flower Guild, lectors and intercessors, Shining Lights, and a corps of ushers coordinated by Kelly Powers. Junior ushers, drawn from young parishioners in grades 4 through 12, share in this ministry of welcome.
Other parish ministries include the Building and Grounds team, Finance, Flower Delivery, the Green Team, Helping Hands, the Needlepoint Guild, Office Volunteers, and the Pastoral Response team. The Well is an intergenerational women’s group, and a Men’s Group gathers periodically for fellowship.
Praying the Daily Office Together
Daily Morning Prayer is offered on Zoom Monday through Friday at 8:45 a.m. The brief, fifteen-minute service draws on the monastic tradition, with psalms, Scripture, ancient collects, litanies, silences, and time for private intercessions. Centering Prayer and two weekly prayer groups, one on Thursdays at 11 a.m. and another on Fridays at 7 a.m. in the church, offer additional ways to pray together. The parish invites all to use the Daily Office as a gift that sanctifies time at the start of the day.
Weddings, Funerals, Baptisms, and Confirmation
The parish is open to couples of any baptized Christian tradition for weddings, and welcomes inquiries from divorced persons, who may be married in the church with the permission of the Bishop of Massachusetts. Three or more conversations with a priest, a reading of the church’s Wedding Guidelines, and a meeting with Parish Administrator Chloe Manning are the first steps.
Baptism is offered for infants, children, and adults, and the parish encourages families considering baptism to contact the parish office. Confirmation, described in the Book of Common Prayer as “a mature public affirmation of faith,” is prepared for through classes for adults (Episcopal 101) and for teenagers in grades 9 through 12, with the rite celebrated in the spring at a regional location by the bishop.
Funerals may be arranged for anyone, with a reception afterwards in the parish hall and the option of burial of ashes in the Memorial Garden.
Giving, Stewardship, and the Parish Budget
Contributions and pledges can be made online through Breeze, the parish’s online giving system, which also handles pledge commitments for the annual stewardship campaign. Checks may be placed in the Sunday collection plate or mailed to the parish office. Episcopal churches do not receive financial assistance from the diocese or the national church; St. John’s instead pays an annual apportionment to the Diocese of Massachusetts to support the wider church’s ministry and mission.
The People Who Lead the Parish
The Rev. Edward Thornley, the ninth rector, is a native of Canterbury, England, who studied theology at the University of Exeter, trained for ordination at Westcott House, Cambridge, and at Yale Divinity School, and was ordained in the Church of England. He served as Assistant Priest and Chaplain to St. Marylebone Parish Church in the Diocese of London, with simultaneous posts as Chaplain to the Royal Academy of Music and to the University of Westminster, before moving to the United States to serve as chaplain at All Saints’ Episcopal School in Fort Worth and as Day School Chaplain and Associate Rector at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church and Day School in Washington, D.C. He is completing a Ph.D. in Divinity at the University of Aberdeen, with research focused on Christian vocation in a pluralist society. He and his wife, Dr. Devon Abts, live in the rectory with their cats, Spyro and Duke.
The Rev. Eva Dalzell, curate, was raised in Washington, D.C., studied Classics at Washington University in St. Louis, served in the Diocese of Massachusetts as an Episcopal Service Corps fellow and as Interim Director of Youth Ministry at the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, and earned her M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2025. She was ordained to the priesthood in December 2025 at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston. The Rev. Robert Edson, rector emeritus, served as rector of St. John’s from 1981 to 2007 and continues to serve the parish as a Pastoral Care Associate.
The vestry is led by Senior Warden Perrie O’Tierney-Ginn, Junior Warden Nancy MacDonald, Treasurer Richard “Skip” Hull, and Clerk Al Bernativicius, with Ministry of Space captain Jennifer Gaysmith and vestry members Sean Burns, Erach Desai, Geoff Emerson, Michael Pizziferri, Carla Hatfield, Chris Accettella, Chrissy Roberts, Nathaniel Hulme, and youth vestry member Martin Seggev. Tom Daley serves as Verger, Monique Weiss Byrnes as Organist and Director of Music, Alexis MacElhiney as Sunday School Director and Youth Coordinator, Chloe Manning as Parish Administrator, Amsale Faye as Accountant, and Myriah Manley as Sexton.
What Episcopalians at St. John’s Believe
Members of St. John’s put their trust in God as revealed in the life and person of Jesus Christ, who reconciles the world to God. The church is described as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, with a mission to restore all people to unity with God. Both Hebrew and Christian scriptures are held to contain all things necessary for salvation, and faith is lived out by loving God with heart, soul, and mind and by loving one’s neighbor as oneself. The congregation promises to continue in the apostles’ teaching, in the sharing of the Eucharist, in resisting evil, and in repenting whenever it falls into sin, and seeks to be an example of Christ by proclaiming God’s love through word and action and by striving for justice and peace among all people.
Signature Events Through the Year
Three signature events give the parish calendar its rhythm. SummerFest in June brings the parish together for an all-ages afternoon to mark the end of the program year. The Not-So-Spooky Haunted House, now in its eighth year, transforms the church into a friendly autumn attraction over two October weekends, drawing more than a thousand visitors and partnering with St. Stephen’s BeLearn after-school program and B-Safe to bring South Shore children to the church. The Holiday Boutique in November brings dozens of vendors and hundreds of volunteers together for the parish’s largest fundraiser of the year, anchored by a Friday evening cocktail party with a live auction and a Saturday market day.
The Building and Where to Find Things
The church (nave) can seat up to 300 people. Upper Weld Hall seats 200 and Lower Weld Hall 130. The parish hall, with its gymnasium on the lower level, dates to 1914. The Memorial Garden for the burial of ashes sits beside the church. Parking is in the lot at the side and rear of the church. Facilities may be reserved for non-profit, service-oriented community groups through the parish office, with a minimum donation of $300 per room and a $100 fee for the sexton.
A Note on Belonging
St. John’s invites anyone to worship, to learn, to serve, and to belong, whether as a regular presence in the pews, a participant in Foyer Dinners or the Welcome Walk, a volunteer at the Holiday Boutique or the Not-So-Spooky Haunted House, or a member of the parish in formal terms. The congregation’s hope is simple: that all who pass through the doors at 172 Main Street, whether longtime members or first-time visitors, will find a community bound together by shared faith, eager to share the Good News of the Gospel through engaging worship, faithful service, and lifelong Christian formation.