Ripon shines as it shares top billing with Rome on BBC’s Easter Sunday

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It’s not every day that Ripon shares the religious limelight with the Vatican.

But it did so today — and the city responded magnificently.

Today’s BBC One Easter Day service was broadcast live from Ripon Cathedral at 10am — and had to finish by 11am promptly so the corporation could switch from Ripon for Rome for the Pope’s Easter blessing from St Peter’s Square.

Pope Leo XIV wasn’t going to be kept waiting so everything had to run like clockwork.

The congregation, which included the Stray Ferret, was asked to arrive by 9.30am, to allow time for bag searches and security checks.

The lord lieutenant, the high sheriff and the mayor were there, and as we waited the Very Reverend John Dobson, Dean of Ripon, reminded everyone to smile on a day that celebrates Christ’s resurrection.

Dr Ronny Krippner, the cathedral’s director of music, led a hymn practice and asked everyone to hold their Order of Service high so faces could be seen.

We were informed the BBC had pre-recorded the first two minutes. As everyone stood and waited at 10am, only the howling of the remnants of Storm Dave, as it whipped around the 1,350-year-old building, could be heard.

While we listened to that eerie sound, hundreds of thousands of viewers watched footage of Dean John in the cathedral’s Anglo-Saxon crypt, built in 672 AD, saying the crypt was “the oldest built fabric of all England’s cathedrals” and “older than England itself”.

Suddenly, trumpets sounded and we were underway with the first hymn.

For the next hour, the service, planned since January, passed without a hitch. The Right Reverend Anna Eltringham, the Bishop of Ripon, delivered the sermon; assistant director of music Tim Harper played the organ magnificently and the choristers sang beautifully. 

We were told beforehand that the communion would have to be cut short because there wasn’t enough time to show hundreds of people receiving bread and wine before Pope Leo stepped onto the balcony in St Peter’s Square so when the service ended, the clergy processed back in to finish the communion.

There was also another hymn and more prayers and when Dean John read the banns of marriage there was a big cheer because it turned out to be for his daughter, Jessica, and her husband-to-be.

“If anyone knows any reason why they should not be married, they really ought to have a word with me,” he joked.

At the end of the service, somebody from the BBC stood up in front of the congregation and said it had been what is known at the BBC as a “triumph of broadcasting”.

He admitted he had expected the choir to contain about 25 members, not the 60 or so Dr Krippner has moulded into a vocal force.

“I can say without fear of contradiction that you have musicians here that are world class,” he said to the biggest cheer of the day.

And then the clergy were dismissed a second time, the cathedral emptied, and the BBC switched to Pope Leo waving on the balcony from St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Ripon was left to bask in how well it had performed on one of the more memorable days in its ancient history.

You can watch the Easter Day service on BBC iPlayer here.