Trinity Church will dedicate its 10 a.m. service on Sunday, Oct. 11, to its connections with the Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps, part of the parish’s tricentennial observances.
Rear Adm. Darryl Walker, president of the Naval War College, will participate. The sermon will be delivered by Chaplain David Duprey, an Episcopal priest and Navy chaplain. Representatives of all three services have been invited. The service ends at 11:15 a.m.
The date was chosen to fall near the Navy’s 251st birthday on Oct. 13.
The church’s ties to the sea services run deep. Commodores Oliver Hazard Perry and Matthew Perry were both baptized at Trinity. The processional cross used at every service is a memorial to Rear Adm. Stephen B. Luce, who founded the Naval War College. Since the college opened in 1884, its staff, faculty and students have regularly been part of the congregation.
During World War II, a pew was reserved for the college’s president, Vice Adm. William Pye, a practice continued under his successor, Adm. Raymond Spruance, whose daughter was married in the church. Vice Adm. James Stockdale preached from the pulpit in the 1970s.
Active and retired service members and their families are welcome, in or out of uniform. Parking information is at trinitynewport.org.
