About our community

St Alban's is the parish church of Highgate, a parish in the Church of England Diocese of Birmingham. Since the beginnings of our Mission in 1865, we have followed an Anglo-Catholic pattern of worship that offers the beauty of ancient liturgical traditions, prayerful celebration of the sacraments and spiritual communion in Christ with one another and with other Christians everywhere.

St Alban's is a church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. We are particularly proud of our musical and liturgical traditions and of their reputations, of our magnificent building and of our roots in 19th century Anglo-Catholicism that sought to reach out to the most marginalized sections of a growing inner-city population. In our case the reaching out was done, first of all, by the founders of our mission and the first vicars of our parish, the saintly brothers Fr James and Fr Tom Pollock. Their vision is still our vision.

Our church is well integrated with our neighbourhood and we engage in common initiatives with local private and public organizations and faith communities. As a part of the Highgate Inter FaithGroup, we run an independent food bank with Central Mosque, Central Synagogue, Stanhope Centre and the Academy, with weekly (and anonymous) distribution of food bags in aid of about 30 local people.

We endeavour to respond to Christ’s mandate to bear witness to His message of liberation and fullness of life for all people, without proselytising. We are conscious of the fact that God’s Kingdom that we endeavour to serve is not restricted to the boundaries of the Church, that the Spirit blows as the Spirit wills, and we do not know from where the Spirit comes and where the Spirit goes. We believe that in a multicultural environment such as Highgate part of our mission has to be through witness rather than just through words, because much ground around us is occupied by other faith communities and believers. It is sacred ground that deserves our humble respect. We also believe that many in our neighbourhood deserve to be told of the good news of Jesus Christ and that there a number of people left to their own device from a spiritual point of view that may benefit from an encounter with Christ through the living community of St Alban’s Parish Church.

The church was under resolutions A and B of the, now repealed, Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 until these expired in November 2016, but has not passed a Resolution under the House of Bishops' Declaration.