Anyone who has attended services at Holy Trinity in the past few years will have heard Margi playing her violin so beautifully during communion. She has now also organised a series of monthly lunchtime concerts that is attracting large audiences to our beautiful church; so Gerard Jordan got together with Margi to find out about how she came to Holy Trinity and the part it plays in her life.
Previous spiritual communities in Margi’s life
Margi literally ‘grew up in the church’ since her father, grandfather and uncle were all ministers of the Congregational Church in the USA. Although originally Calvinistic, the Congregational Church evolved and divided over the centuries; the church in Maine where her father was minister, belonged to the most socially liberal, pluralistic and diverse denomination. Being one of the
minister's kids was a key feature of Margi’s early life. She recalls “standing beside my Dad after church hoping he'd stop talking so we could all go home, or my mother sending me off to the church to look for him and tell him to come home. The phone ringing every evening at dinnertime and his meal getting cold while he talked to a needy parishioner or a council member. My mother was also very involved in the church, teaching Sunday school, filling in where necessary, taking in troubled kids.” Margi says that her parents didn't talk about their personal faith with her "but it really didn't matter because I always knew deep down that they were true Christians by the way they lived. It brings to mind the hymn: They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love". Her parents' intense commitment to their pastoral work and their faith has thus made a deep impression throughout Margi’s life and lives on in her today.
After initially studying the violin in Bloomington, Indiana, Margi gained a Fulbright scholarship in 1979 to continue her studies in Warsaw, Poland where she was to meet her future husband Marek. At that time in communist Poland there were very few protestant churches and the Methodist chapel she visited there, with its services in Polish, just didn't feel like a place she belonged. Likewise, when she commenced her professional career in Germany, she didn’t find the German state Protestant church to be particularly warm and welcoming to newcomers or interested in growing its flock.
It wasn’t until 2010 that Margi discovered the Anglican church in Freiburg. She happened to read something about it in the local paper and then the very same day a friend contacted her and asked her to come along so that she could introduce her to people, and that is how she came to become a member there. “It was what you would call 'low church' , a wonderful group of people with a dedicated, inspiring pastor, very much like Father Jeremy.”
Holy Trinity in Margi’s life
Margi and Marek started coming to Nice during time-off from the orchestra, and they first discovered Holy Trinity on an Easter morning in 2017. Margi recalls: "The beauty of the church,
Father Peter's services, the hospitality and fellowship which seemed to play a big role, all drew me in”; she remembers that it was Joëlle and Keith Paterson who warmly welcomed them after the service that day at coffee hour in the garden.
So Margi started to attend Holy Trinity regularly whenever she was in Nice and also got to know Father Peter and his husband Joe, himself a talented pianist and with whom she developed a close musical relationship over the years. Margi was in Nice throughout COVID, so Joe asked Margi if she could play with him during the streamed services as there was no other music; many of us recall what comfort those services and that music brought to us all at that difficult time.
Following her retirement in 2023, Margi then settled permanently in Nice. She “became a permanent fixture in the first pew on Sundays!” and says she has “found a true church home for the first time since my childhood”.
It was the sad loss of our Cantor Tony Feltham in the summer of 2023 that led to Margi starting to play regularly for us during communion: “I have enjoyed playing violin during communion for over a year now, since Tony passed away, and I play nearly every week. My wish is that the music provide an atmosphere during which the experience of taking the bread and wine may be intensified. Even if it only happens to one person, it is has made it worthwhile. I enjoy having this goal every week: to find a beautiful piece, just the right length, just the right mood. It has been helpful and supportive - even essential - to hear people's feedback, to hear that someone has found a piece particularly moving, or that it has enhanced their experience."
Along with the beautiful gift of her music, Margi also loves being a part of ‘Jill's Team’, a group of people that our churchwarden Jill can call on whenever anything practical needs doing, whether it be preparing for a social event or working on a practical task together. "The teamwork and finding how compatible we all are and rejoicing in the results is so rewarding."
I ask Margi why on earth she is drawn to the ‘High Church’ catholic-style services at Holy Trinity when her roots are in such a different tradition of Christian worship. She explains “Well, unlike my father, I find all the formality, the liturgy, the differing altar vestments, the chasubles and the chants all rather comforting, even if sometimes I might be just going through the motions without thinking about what the words coming out of my mouth really mean to me. I am moved and inspired by Father Jeremy's sermons. Communion every week, as opposed to once a month in the church I grew up in, provides a quiet moment of renewal, even if I'm playing. I think if I were to give you a word to describe what the weekly church service means to me, it would be RENEWAL. I'm also a sucker for beautiful old things: musical instruments, wooden boats, antiques and historic buildings, and this church is simply beautiful to look at. Holy Trinity is for me a unique fusion of that aesthetic experience, the comforting formality and a vibrant, loving and open community”.
