A very beautiful service was conducted by the Very Reverend Dr John Hall the Dean of Westminster at Westminster Abbey on 4th June 2013 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation.
The Dean Dr John Hall gave the Bidding that sixty years ago, in this holy place, Queen Elizabeth II was anointed with holy oil, clothed with sacred garments, and, after receiving symbols of authority, crowned with the Crown of St. Edward, King and Confessor, just as Her Majesty’s royal predecessors from 1066, and gave thanks to God, and prayed for the Queen and her family.
The Prime Minister David Cameron read a ‘Kings’ passage from the Bible and the Commonwealth Secretary General Shri Kamlesh Sharma read another of St Mark.
A Procession led by her Majesty’s subjects, including British children and others with symbolically the British Lolly Pop Lady carried a flask of oil and presented it to the Dean to place it on the Alter.
The Archbishop gave a very beautiful sermon appropriate to the occasion:
“Liberty is only real when it exists under authority. Liberty under authority begins, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it, with our duty to God, whose service is perfect freedom; we live in a hierarchy of liberty under authority that ascends to God’s limitless love.”
Anil Bhanot OBE
Representative of the Hindu Community