Hippie Ordination

At St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley, Calif., a bishop and priests in white surplices and red stoles gathered around the altar for the ordination of a priest. Instead of the traditional ecclesiastical garb, the moustached young man in their midst wore a psychedelic chasuble festooned with yarn balls and tinkling bells. In the background, a group called Martha's Laundry blasted out rock settings of hymn tunes.

Thus was Richard York, 28, elevated to the ranks of the Episcopal priesthood this month. A 1967 graduate of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, York has been backed by a number of local churches in operating a "free church" that ministers to Berke ley hippies. When the time came for York's ordination, Episcopal officials invited his flower-power friends to participate, and modified the stately services to accommodate the spirit of the occasion. St. Mark's was decked out with gas-filled balloons and banners, children wandered along the aisles at will, and the sermon by the Rev. John Pairman Brown was entitled "God Is Doing His Thing." When the congregation was invited to "donate something which has meaning to you," the collection plate yielded little money but plenty of beads, marbles, a draft card and even a package of morning-glory seeds. Later, Father York distributed communion to his turned-on friends.

The Rt. Rev. Richard Millard, Suffragan Bishop of California, presided at the ceremony and made no apologies for it. In wealthy San Mateo County across the Bay, he argued, "people would bring their azure minks and the brass section from the San Francisco Symphony" to an ordination. "Why shouldn't the hippies be allowed to wear the clothes they like and bring their music too?"

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