PEOPLE from a variety of Christian groups are joining together at a historic York church in an effort to forge lasting links.

Monks, nuns, friars, sisters and lay people from the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches are to hold "encounter days" every month in the medieval Priory Church of the Holy Trinity, in Micklegate.

The sessions are the first stage of a potentially wider project to develop Holy Trinity as an ecumenical centre explaining the spiritual and social heritage of religious communities in Britain.

It is hoped this project will further raise the profile of York and the region as a centre for "ecclesiastical tourism".

Members of the religious groups were invited to use the church as a venue for meeting each other and the wider public by the local church council, and the Venerable Richard Seed, Archdeacon of York and Rector of Holy Trinity.

Mr Seed said: "I am delighted that this project is taking root in our parish community. Holy Trinity Church is itself a former monastic building, and it is appropriate that religious communities should return to this busy part of the city to share something of their lives and spiritual motivations."

The encounter days will initially take place on the last Wednesday of the summer months. They begin with coffee at 11am in the Jacob's Well building adjoining the church, followed at noon by a half-hour talk on "a day in the life" of a religious community, and a brief act of worship.

Members of numerous religious communities will then be available in the church to meet visitors and tourists until 3.45pm, when the day will close with Sung Vespers.

The project embraces a wide diversity of Christian communities, from the friars, sisters and lay-members of the Carmelite Order, which has been present in the city since 1250, to the L'Arche community, an international organisation founded in the 1960s to bring together those with learning difficulties and their assistants.

Other participants include sisters from the Order of the Holy Paraclete in Whitby, members of the Congregation of Jesus at York's Bar Convent, and monks from Mirfield and Ampleforth Abbey.

Pictured from left, Sister Margaret Mary, of Sisters of Mercy; John Gribben, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield; Sister Pam, of the Order of the Holy Paraclete; Sister Maureen Ruth, of the Order of the Holy Paraclete; Johan Bergstrom-Allen, Order of Carmelites; Jonathan Critchley, Community of the Resurrection; Angela Bergstrom-Allen, Carmelite Third Order; Jose Good, churchwarden at Holy Trinity; and Father Matthew Burns, Benedictine monk at Ampleforth Abbey.

Updated: 09:22 Thursday, May 27, 2004