City Churches Research Articles

The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren (review)

Reviewed by: The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren Nigel Yates The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren. By Paul Jeffery. (New York: Hambledon Continuum. 2007. Pp. xx, 385. $35.95. ISBN 978-1-852-85142-2.) This is a paperback reprint of a book first published in 1996; its author died within a year of its original publication. It is a meticulous account of the subject, with 188 well-chosen illustrations in the form of plans, engravings, and photographs. Particularly valuable for the church historian are those illustrations that show the interiors of some churches before Victorian restoration. The book is divided into two roughly equal parts. The first part provides a general introduction to Wren’s city churches, the second a detailed account of the fifty-eight churches plus St. Paul’s Cathedral (the cathedral and fifty-one of the churches were rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666), including those that are no longer standing. For the historian of London or architecture, this is an exceptionally useful and detailed book. A major problem with these churches is distinguishing those designed by Wren from those designed by his assistants, notably Nicholas Hawksmoor and Robert Hooke. Paul Jeffery unravels this problem with great skill. Where he is less comprehensive is in his discussion of the buildings’ original furnishings and the alteration of these in nineteenth-century restorations. Unusually, most of the churches were designed without thought to the furnishings, which were then commissioned from local craftsmen. It is therefore impossible to say much about the original liturgical focus of the buildings. Jeffery assumes that most pulpits and reading desks were placed in the traditional early-seventeenth-century position, more or less adjacent to the altar, and that they were only moved into the middle of churches in the mid-eighteenth century (pp. 156–57), but cites no evidence to support this assumption. The likelihood is that pulpit and reading desk were placed in different locations in different buildings, according to the wishes of those commissioning the furnishings; for those churches in which the pulpit and reading desk are known to have been in a central position by the mid-eighteenth century this may have been their position from the start. [End Page 392] Inevitably, there is some discussion of the long-term future of Wren’s surviving city churches, with only twenty-three of the fifty-one rebuildings still surviving as complete entities. The various attempted solutions, such as the creation of guild churches in 1952 and the recommendations of commissions under Sir Denys Buckley in 1970 and Lord Templeman in 1994, are carefully evaluated, and Jeffery’s conclusion is that no hasty or ill-considered actions should be taken in the future. Within the text there are a small number of omissions or curious comments. The one on page 158 that “services of holy communion (not then referred to as ‘mass’ due to association with Catholicism) were less frequent than nowadays” seems out of place in a work of this scholarship. The comment on the sale of fittings from St. Antholin’s in 1874 (p. 208) might have been expanded to list their new owners; some are still in the parish church of King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells. The early-twentieth-century Anglo-Catholic embellishment of the parish and pilgrimage church of St. Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, is not noted (p. 259), although the late-twentieth-century reordering of the parish church of St. Stephen Walbrook is (p. 342).These minor inconsistencies and infelicities do not, however, detract from the overall value of this first-class work of reference, and the publishers are to be congratulated for reprinting this book. Nigel Yates University of Wales, Lampeter Copyright © 2009 The Catholic University of America Press

Churches in city's landscape - contradiction of perception

Churches in city's landscape - contradiction of perception

Communal Transformations of Church Space in Lutheran Lubeck

Though Johannes Bugenhagen instituted the structures for Lutheran reform in 1530, the impetus for reform in Lübeck came foremost from a specific stratum of ‘unofficial’ culture. Lübeck, a powerful trading city in modern-day Germany on the Baltic Sea, and head of the transnational Hanseatic League, was controlled by a wealthy and influential merchant class. The participation of this merchant class in the reconfiguration of the city's churches attests to its enthusiasm for the Lutheran cause and also belies the rigidity of the social hierarchy that organized Lübeck's society. As a result of this enthusiasm, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the addition of candleholders, pews, and tombstones to the architecture of Lübeck's churches. A further look at the key features of a Lutheran service, particularly where the Word figured prominently in the sermon and in the music, leads to the discovery of the elaboration of the pulpit and organs. Lutheran art in sacred spaces primarily testified to the faith of a pious and wealthy burgher community in Lübeck.

SECULAR CHARITY, SACRED POVERTY: PICTURING THE POOR IN RENAISSANCE VENICE

The poor were depicted with increasing frequency and prominence in Venetian art of the sixteenth century. This new level of visualization within the fictive space of representation indirectly reflects contemporary attempts to exclude poveri and other undesirables from the actual space of the city. Increased state involvement in poor relief stimulated a new iconography of secular charity featuring almsgiving by patrician officials, presented in an hierarchical manner that pointedly departs from the more communal depictions in paintings commissioned by the city's non‐noble scuole. But it was in religious painting for the city's churches and monasteries that the visual imagery of poverty was most dramatically improved, with reference both to sacred and devotional texts stressing poverty as a sacred value and to formal models from antique and High Renaissance art. The povero increasingly appeared as an idealized human archetype whose suffering and humility associated him directly with Christ. The article concludes by arguing that the symbolization of the poor as significant sacred actors in visual art was an aspect of their repression and exclusion in the social domain.

Sinful Cities and Ecclesiastical Excuses: The 'Churches for Art's Sake' Movement from the Century Guild to Eliot

The threatened closure of London's City churches at the turn of the nineteenth century gave rise to a movement in which artists and writers voiced their opposition. Eliot is at the end of a tradition that starts as an important aspect of the aesthetic movement in England, particularly through the work and writing of the Century Guild. The issue of city churches raises important questions about the autonomy of art, and this is a formative influence upon the literature of the decadence. Particular poems by Arthur Symons, Lionel Johnson, and Ernest Dowson are then considered as possible attempts to effect reconciliation between literary aestheticism and religious orthodoxy through the image of the City church.

The Architecture of Scottish Government from Kingship to Parliamentary Democracy (review)

Reviewed by: The Architecture of Scottish Government from Kingship to Parliamentary Democracy Charles McKean The Architecture of Scottish Government from Kingship to Parliamentary Democracy. By Miles Glendinning, with Richard Oram, Aonghus MacKechnie with an appendix by Athol Murray. Pp. xiv, 400. ISBN 1 84586 000 4Dundee: Dundee University Press. 2004. £30. The spatial relationship between governors and the governed is a most significant architectural question, well meriting detailed examination in the light of debate over the nature of the Scottish Parliament. This well-illustrated book, the first under the imprint of Dundee University Press and published in association with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), is the first to address the Scottish experience. It examines how the locations in which the two met changed over the centuries, and provides an opportunity to ponder just how ambitious we Scots were. After a brief resume, by Glendinning, of how the ancients governed themselves (that occasionally blurs the distinction between the spaces in which decisions were made with buildings occupied by officials of the state), Richard Oram follows the interaction between community and realm in Scotland through the mediaeval period. It is a fascinating account of how mediaeval open-air meetings, apparently offering accessibility to the king for everybody, were superseded by meetings in abbeys and royal palaces, leading eventually to purpose-designed buildings for state governance -crucially independent of the royal environment. Moyses recounts huge opposition to a Parliament being held in the Great Hall at Stirling under James VI's minority as being contrary to custom and thereby illegal and unconstitutional (not mentioned in this book). In 1562, St Giles' nave and aisles had been converted into a new Parliament House on a permanent basis (called promiscuously Edinburgh's Tolbooth and Parliament House, as Alan Macdonald has discovered, rather than as stated in the book). This two-storeyed combined national and local government complex was entered throughtheRomanesquedoorway ofHaddo's Hole and up a stately flight of steps. The blocked up windows of this Parliament House can still be seen in the nave arcades. A first floor bridge led to the small and inconvenient outbuilding called the New Tolbooth which acted as supplementary accommodation for civic affairs. The volume is structured around two principal set pieces—the 1630s Parliament House contrasted with that of the 21st century. However, for an architectural and spatial book co-sponsored by the (RCAHMS), it allows itself to be sometimes overwhelmed by a superimposed political perspective that works against an understanding of how the buildings evolved. In 1631-2, the city council decided to restore dignity to the city church by creating a new building for Parliament and town council. So the impetus and brief for Scotland's splendid new Parliament Hall was entirely civic, and to locate it within the non-architectural context of a 'crisis of kingship,' as Aonghus MacKechnie does, [End Page 154] is erroneous. The building's construction is well recounted, largely from secondary material, by MacKechnie, but tempted by his regal perspective, he makes claims that the building was part of a grandiose urban remodelling of Edinburgh that are very difficult to substantiate. MacKechnie argues that national urban ambition was expressed in placing Parliament Hall in a geometric triangular relationship with the near-contemporary George Heriot's Hospital, on the one corner, with the palace within Edinburgh Castle in the other, and that roof corbels within Parliament House carved with three towers represented Heriot's. However, they are less likely to refer to the as yet undesigned Heriot's hospital (whose central tower Rothiemay indicates was a much taller spire) than Edinburgh's three-equal-towered civic crest. Moreover, since Parliament Hall was begun on its given site before Heriot's was under way, a broader spatial relationship was probably coincidental. Had it been otherwise, Parliament House's facades facing Heriot's would have been designed as principal facades and built of ashlar—in keeping with the northern façade of Heriot's and the eastern façade of the palace. But they were not. They were secondary facades, harled and largely undecorated. MacKechnie does not, in fact, provide a detailed examination of the architecture...

Predicting Intentions to Use Condoms Using Gender, Sexual Experience, and the Theory of Planned Behavior

This study examined condom use intentions among a large diverse group of African American adolescents and provides useful information to assist in the development of effective HIV prevention interventions. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), we explored which constructs are important in shaping intentions to use condoms for younger versus older, female versus male, and sexually experienced versus sexually inexperienced African American youth (n=832). Youth were recruited from inner city schools (n=666) and church youth groups (n=166). Findings indicate that improving subjective norms will be effective with all groups, whereas interventions to improve perceived behavioral control are likely to have an impact on all except sexually experienced girls. Attitudes toward condom use were associated with condom intentions, but only among sexually experienced youth. Prevention programs could greatly increase their efficacy by creating modules that focus on the needs of specific groups when identification of important characteristics (e.g., sexual experience) is possible. Our results indicate that sexually experienced girls may require the most specialized approaches.

The paschal alleluia in medieval France

The alleluia was the last proper chant of the Mass to be standardized. Through the twelfth century and beyond, different churches assigned different alleluias to the same Masses, and the composition of new alleluia chants flourished throughout the latter Middle Ages. The Masses from Easter to the octave of Pentecost witness this. A collation of ca. 200 manuscripts demonstrates that identical series of chants are to be found only in sources emanating from the same church (or churches in the same city). Most of the alleluia chants from the eleventh century onward have New Testament or non-scriptural texts, as opposed to the psalmic texts of the earlier post-Pentecostal alleluias. The musical style is varied, ranging from the richly melismatic manner traditionally associated with the alleluia to much more modest melodies with few or no large melismas. A number of the latter can be associated with the reforms of Guillaume de Volpiano at Dijon and in Normandy in the years after 1000.

Black church beginnings: the long-hidden realities of the first years

Black Church Beginnings provides an intimate look at the struggles of African Americans to establish spiritual communities in the harsh world of slavery in the American colonies. Written by one of today's foremost experts on African American religion, this book traces the growth of the black church from its start in the mid-1700s to the end of the nineteenth century. As Henry Mitchell shows, the first African American churches didn't just organize; they labored hard, long, and sacrificially to form a meaningful, independent faith. Mitchell insightfully takes readers inside this process of development. He candidly examines the challenge of finding adequately trained pastors for new local congregations, confrontations resulting from internal class structure in big city churches, and obstacles posed by emerging denominationalism. Original in its subject matter and singular in its analysis, Mitchell's Black Church Beginnings makes a major contribution to the study of American church history.

‘ACCORDING TO ANCIENT CUSTOM’: THE RETURN OF ALTARS IN THE RESTORATION CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Despite its association with the ill-fated reforms of Archbishop Laud in the 1630s and its dubious legality, the railed altar re-appeared in parish churches in the years after 1660. Initially only a handful of parishes and a minority of bishops backed so controversial a change, but the reconstruction of the city churches in London after the fire of 1666 popularised the railed altar, which was adopted elsewhere, particularly during the tory reaction of the 1680s. Studies of two urban parishes in the early 1680s indicate how struggles between dissenters and zealous anglicans could extend to disputes over worship. By 1700, what had been new and contested in the 1630s was becoming widely accepted, which may point to the powerful legacy of Laudian ideals in the restoration church.

Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen. New York: Routledge, 2002. Pp. ix, 437. $27.95.

The Marxists had it right all along, they just got tripped up by their materialism. Early modern capitalism opened vast new worlds, particularly in the arts and sciences, only the traffic went both ways. Creative agents invented new markets and pushed commerce in directions that favored enterprises immensely cosmopolitan and innovative, often solely for the sake of beauty and display. Commerce offered a context but the nobility, and not an imagined bourgeoisie, had the edge when it came to exploiting the market for objets. Paintings could be traded for property, land, and houses. Princes could sponsor natural philosophers, and the fluidity in values meant that good investors, like good practitioners of the arts and sciences, took an interest in all aspects of learning. The interrelatedness of the representational arts and natural philosophy stands as one of the central themes in this tightly integrated collection of essays. We now have a vast historiography telling us that we should no longer teach early modern science without reference to the art of the time, and vice-versa. The point is beautifully illustrated by an exhibition recently held at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (spring 2002) on the art of Pieter Saenredam. Working in Utrecht in the 1630s, he used geometry to regularize and make precise the angles and corners found in the exquisite paintings he made of the city's churches. He knew as much about geometry as he did about chiaroscuro. At precisely the same moment, an hour or two away by barge, Descartes in Leiden put the final touches on his Discourse on Method (1637). In effect he explained to the world why precision and clarity of thought made possible the kind of beauty that Saenredam's paintings would come to embody.

Appropriation des pratiques religieuses: le cas des rituels catholiques dans une ville belge

The modern process of secularization is analysed in Charleroi, a medium-size city (200,000 inhabitants) in Belgium. Despite its modern character, a number of popular Christian rites are still practised there. They are performed by priests representing the institutional Church, but in response to those who do not habitually attend the city's churches. The ritual performed by the “professionals” continues even as the institution wanes. These practised rites of a contemporary urban religion bear witness to the appropriation of institutional symbols and rituals. Lack of cognitive understanding of Catholicism allows the reconstruction of Catholic components into a popular belief. The aim of this article is to analyse the process of appropriation. The observational research is based on anthropological fieldwork and in-depth interviews not only with church-goers but also with the priests of the city as a whole.

HEALING IN THE LOCAL CHURCH –OEKOLAMPAD BASLE (SWITZERLAND)

FRITZ CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER [*] First personal experiences I was born in 1941 in a little village near Bern. At the age of one I fell seriously ill and had to go to hospital for six months. Naturally I cannot remember this time but since my childhood this has left a deep impression on me: If I'm still alive, it isn't natural. It is because of the work of the doctor (the famous professor Dr Glanzmann), because of the affection and love of my mother and father and because of God, who made the possible. From 1962 to 1969 I studied theology at the universities of Bern, Montpellier (France) and Mainz (Germany). The topic of health, faith and healing was not covered in the academic world. I heard of prayer in a Christian community in France only in 1966 but I had no direct contact with these persons. Around 1968 my interest was directed to the political and social role of the church in the world. It was the time of the World Council of Churches conference on Church and Society (Geneva 1966) and of the fourth assembly of the WCC in Uppsala (1968). Since 1969 I have been a pastor of the evangelical-reformed church in different communities in Switzerland. The social and political role of the church was always an important part of my activities, having been a member of the parliament of the canton of Basle City [1] during the last eight years. My principal interest was the development and the of the world. Soon I saw that not only the world needs but persons as well. I took courses in pastoral care (clinical pastoral training). Experiences in evangelical charismatic communities In 1976 I had my first experience of prayer in a charismatic community, took courses and was deeply impressed by prayer-healing. In 1982 I came to Basle and joined the Oekolampad community, which has two church buildings. In the Thomas Church my colleague had built a charismatic movement with special prayers of healing. In the first half year I participated actively in this movement. After that, I left the movement for various reasons but stayed with the Oekolampad community. In 1991 I attended a Reiki [2] course and I have used this knowledge occasionally in my family. During the last few years I have taken part in the Basler Psi-Tage, [3] a congress for esoteric and frontier-sciences -- often on the subject of spiritual healing. It is a congress outside the churches. I got to know some spiritual healers from different countries, religions and cultures. I came to the conclusion that spiritual has to find a place in our church. Spiritual in the Elisahethen Church and the Oekolampad Church in Basle The Elisabethen Church is a city church in the middle of Basle. It is not a typical community. It is supported by the evangelical-refonned and Roman Catholic churches, and by private supporters. The pastor, Hansrudolf Felix Felix, founded it. His vision was to create a church for the whole human being. He began with four prayers in the year. Since 1995 twelve women healers have been working in the church. Approximately thirty persons come every Thursday. First there was great attention from the mass media because it was probably the first place in Switzerland where spiritual healers worked in a church. Now, other similar centres exist. Three years ago a group of eight women healers asked to rent a room in our church. Before they had asked for a place for their group in the Elisabethen Church but it was fully booked. They made an excellent impression on me and I was very glad that they asked to come to our church. There were no other church leaders who wanted to give them room. The council of our church community rented a room for a low price. In August 1997 the group began its work once a week with the name Healing hands. In the first month only a few persons came. …

Inventing Congress: Origins and Establishment of the First Federal Congress

On March 4, 1789, New York City's church bells pealed, cannons fired, and flags snapped in the wind to celebrate the date set for the opening of the First Federal Congress. In many ways the establishment of Congress marked the culmination of the American Revolution as the ship of state was launched from the foundation of the legislative system outlined in Article I of the Constitution. Inventing Congress presents the latest scholarship on the interrelated intellectual, institutional, cultural, and political antecedents of the formation of the First Federal Congress. The first section covers the origins of the body, ranging in discussion from the question of how the founders' understanding of classical Greek and Roman republican precedent shaped their thinking, to the political lessons learned during the Continental and Confederation Congresses. The second section concerns itself with the establishment of the First Federal Congress, examining several heretofore little-treated aspects of the most important Congress in history, including its relationship to the press, morality, the arts and sciences, and economic philosophy. Inventing Congress represents the papers from the first two conferences sponsored by the United States Capitol Historical Society in its series, Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1789-1801.

Coach Ride Gospel

The songs heard in London and Birmingham's Pentecostal Churches are not always very Caribbean in flavour. Most of them are hymns, sung from the book. Some of these hymns, sung from American books, resemble country and western songs. This is because so many of the West Indian churches originated in the American South as ‘poor white’ fellowships, and afterwards spread to the Caribbean. Young Black British members prefer American black gospel and learn its shifting styles from cassette tapes, note by note. Such American songs were once sung by enormous, frantically conducted District Choirs. These are now being gradually replaced by smaller Chorales, as is the case in Black America. But the third type of city Church music, the Chorus, has a definite Islands character. Some of the repetitive Holy Ghost tranceinducing choruses are of English Sunday School and ‘happy clappy’ origin, but by the time Brother Clarendon on the drums, Brother Ray on saxophone and all the Sisters with tambourines have finished with them, they sound Caribbean enough for a Holy Rolling Carnival.

‘Chimeres, monopoles and stratagems’: French Exiles in the Spanish Netherlands during the Thirty Years' War

In July 1631 Marie de' Medici, the queen mother of Louis XIII of France, arrived in the Spanish Netherlands as an exile. After passing through various towns she made her entry to the capital of Brussels in the company of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. According to the queen mother's official apologist, Jean Puget de la Serre, the spectacular event was marked with the pomp and ceremony reserved for a visiting sovereign: as they entered the city, the bells of the city churches were rung, the local elites turned out in regiments of civic guards and confraternities, and formal speeches were made in Marie de' Medici's honour. Standing before the queen mother, the Chevalier and Pensionary of Brussels welcomed her to Brussels as the first queen-consort of France since Eleanor, elder sister of Charles V and second wife of Francis I, had visited the city nearly a century before.1Marie de' Medici's self-imposed exile deepened the rift within the French royal family that had already been exposed following the Day of Dupes (10-11 March 1630), and which was worsened by the tensions between Louis XIII and his younger brother, Gaston d'Orleans, who himself had left France for Lorraine. Attention from around the courts of Europe understandably focused at this crucial political juncture on the divided Bourbon House. Apparently surprised by Marie de' Medici's arrival, the Infanta Isabella wrote to her nephew, Philip IV, expressing her uncertainty about the wider consequences of the queen mother's exile and of Gaston's attempts to seek aid from Spain, while the papal inter-nuncio in Brussels went further in reporting the fears expressed that Richelieu might actually use the exile of the Bourbons as a pretext to attack the Spanish Netherlands.2 In the meantime, the Spanish ambassador to the papal court, Diego Saavedra y Fajardo, reported the concerns felt in Rome over the possibility of renewed Habsburg aggression in Europe in the wake of Bourbon divisions.3The fears of the papal court were not totally unfounded. For the Spanish regime in Madrid, still smarting after the massive setbacks in the recent north Italian war over Mantua and Monferrato, the Bourbon split presented potential opportunities for applying pressure against Richelieu, even though the same concerns about provoking France into open war were again raised.4 In the summer of 1631 the pro-Habsburg Savoyard agent Abbot Alessandro Scaglia travelled to London as extraordinary ambassador of Spain, and while publicly the Spanish offered to mediate between the queen mother, Gaston and Louis XIII, Scaglia carried secret instructions for organising a coalition against Richelieu with England, Savoy and Lorraine in support of the exiled Bourbons.5 To the Count-Duke Olivares, commenting with a typical rhetorical flourish in November 1631 on the state of Spain's fortunes in Europe and Scaglia's mission to Charles I, it seemed 'that the most critical point in current affairs has arrived'.6The split in the Bourbon House and the exile of Louis XIII's mother and brother were of considerable importance both to France and to the wider fortunes of international relations during the Thirty Years' War. Yet while the broad narrative of the episode is generally known, the issues raised by their act of going into exile has received little more than a cursory examination, aside from the disorganised and anecdotal study by the Belgian historian Ernest Gossart, and Paul Henrard's now-dated and limited work on Marie de' Medici.7 Michel Carmona, the queen mother's most recent biographer, affords probably the best treatment of the period, though his book also reveals a relative lack of research in Belgian archives and only scant work on Spanish material, while Georges Dethan has correspondingly neglected Gaston's years in exile in his biography of the prince, effectively picking up the narrative on his return to France in October 1634.8 There is indeed still relatively little scholarly literature in English on the Spanish Netherlands. …

Building on Mutual Goals

ABSTRACT In this era of diminishing federal and state funds for social services, greater attention has been directed toward how social work and the religious sector can cooperate in providing services. This article suggests that social workers should move beyond this focus and begin to identify and join in collective action with local congregations or faith-based organizations, which take an activist approach toward community needs. The author uses a case study of an activist central city church to illustrate how churches can be involved in community change. Social workers are encouraged to consider all methods of collaboration with the religious sector that would lead to the mutual goal of community betterment.

The Vatican, Palestinian Christians, Israel, and Jerusalem: Religion, Politics, Diplomacy, and Holy Places, 1945–1950

The years 1945–9 were a time of profound political and social transformation for Palestine. Few other periods in its history match these changes, which left no community unaffected. The overwhelming Palestinian-Arab Christian and Muslim community was reduced from a majority to a minority, subject to the rule of a staunchly nationalistic Jewish and Zionist state. The events of 1948–9 were particularly devastating. A large number of Palestinians became refugees, including approximately fifty to seventy per cent of the Palestinian Christian population. Nearly half of the Christian community of Jerusalem had lived and had their businesses in the more modern and developed western sector of the city until Israeli occupation; their property was sequestered after they fled or were compelled to leave. Most of them were forced to seek refuge in the Old City, in monasteries and other Church buildings. Many others were forced to flee elsewhere, some leaving the former Mandate territory altogether.

A single-visit cervical carcinoma prevention program offered at an inner city church

A single-visit cervical carcinoma prevention program was implemented, integrating screening, diagnosis, treatment, and health education in the familiar environment of the community church. Nonpregnant women age 18 years or older, who had not received cervical carcinoma screening in the preceding year were eligible. Subjects provided information on personal demographics, health, and knowledge regarding cervical carcinoma prevention. Thereafter, cervical cytology was collected, processed, and interpreted on site. Participants attended small-group instruction on cervical carcinoma prevention. Screening results were given to each subject individually. Patients with abnormal cytology underwent immediate colposcopy with biopsies or loop electrosurgical excision procedure as indicated. Participant satisfaction and educational impact were evaluated. Ninety of the 98 participants reported that Spanish was their native language; 59 did not speak English. Fifty-four had had fewer than 6 years of education and 55 were unemployed. Seventy-eight did not have a regular physician or health insurance. Twenty-four either had never undergone cervical carcinoma screening or had let more than 5 years elapse since their previous examination. None of nine potential barriers assessed correlated with past compliance with cervical carcinoma screening. The mean time for processing and on-site interpretation of cervical cytology smears was 22.6 +/- 5.3 minutes. The median time patients spent in the program was 75 minutes. There was a significant improvement in the subjects' knowledge regarding cervical carcinoma prevention. All participants were highly satisfied. This parish-based, integrated, single-visit program for the prevention of cervical carcinoma was easily implemented and provided care to a substantial proportion of underserved patients.

A single‐visit cervical carcinoma prevention program offered at an inner city church

A single‐visit cervical carcinoma prevention program offered at an inner city church