Tomorrow (Sunday), the Feast of Christ the King, Zion Church, Rathgar, will celebrate its 150th anniversary. The Archbishop of Armagh will preside and preach at the Sunday morning Eucharist.
Bishop Roy Warke, Rector of Zion, 1971–88, and editor of the parish history which was published in 1986 to mark the 125th anniversary, will also attend. Among his curates were the current Archdeacon of Cork, the Archdeacon of Glendalough and the Archbishop of Dublin.
Zion Church was opened for public worship in 1 November 1861 and was consecrated by Archbishop Richard Whately on 21 November 1862. It was the last of a number of trustee churches in Dublin which were built by evangelicals to cater for the needs of the growing Dublin suburbs. Earlier, similar ventures had been undertaken in, among other places, North Strand, Sandford and Harold’s Cross.
A pastoral district was assigned to the church in 1885 enabling baptisms and marriages to take place and in 1921 the church was vested in the Representative Church Body and the former parochial district was formally constituted as a parish.
Since then the parish has developed to meet the growing needs of the Rathgar area which include not only the worshippers in Zion Church but also the needs of institutions such as the Church of Ireland Theological Institute and the RCB Library, the High School, and Mount Carmel and St Luke’s Hospitals.
Today the parish is led by the Revd Stephen Farrell who was appointed as Rector of Zion earlier this year. (C of I notes – Irish Times).