St Mark’s Episcopal Church

St. Mark’s is an incredibly beautiful and historic church. I held my wedding ceremony here last June and couldn’t be happier. I was initially nervous because we didn’t have a signed agreement and we had a little trouble getting in touch with the office coordinator, but everything turned out fine. Vanessa was wonderful to work with and very attentive during both the rehearsal and wedding ceremony.
We were thrilled that George, St. Mark’s Director of Music, was available to be our organist. There was significant construction going on just outside the church but we were kept updated on its progress leading up to the wedding and other than blocking part of the sidewalk it didn’t affect the ceremony at all.
Service Provided 5, Experience 3

St. Mark’s is a wonderful venue to listen to choral music. Attended my daughter’s chorus concert twice here — winter and spring — and tonight they did a collaboration with an adult male ensemble with 8 members. The acoustics here are much better, in my opinion, than in the San Francisco church venues they sing, so I always choose to their east bay concert for that reason. I had to laugh as some older patrons, who clearly were regulars, walked in with cushions to sit on. They’re onto something — the pews are definitely hard, hard wood and become very uncomfortable when sitting for such a long time.

I am not a member of their congregation, nor do I aspire to be. This review is based on the half a dozen or so times that I have been to St. Marks to hear baroque music. The acoustics are superb and the seating is fairly intimate. All in all one of the better venues to hear the viola de gamba or the recorder do their baroquey best.

Beautiful place. Been here for a wedding or two and the sanctuary is marvelous. Classy dark wood, good lighting (especially important for event photography), a nice courtyard for outdoor pictures, spacious, and really helpful staff. Parking’s tough, but then again, you’re in Berkeley so that’s a given.
I like it here, and think it’s a great place for an event. Never been here for the worship service or any other religious meetings, but I’m just reviewing the venue. On that count, this place is superb.

Edited: February 2016
I find a previous comment about St. Mark’s anti-​gay nature to be at odds with my experience. This church is anything but anti-​gay. I am a gay man who attended St. Mark’s regularly for thirty years and have only recently departed due to a move. There are LGBT parishioners (perhaps 20% of the church membership) and staff alike. In fact, our newly appointed interim rector is an openly gay man. Moreover, LGBT members include several people who are considered to be leaders at the national level of the Episcopal Church … as well as educators at major schools of religion (many still active via the Graduate Theological Union) and the University of California. It’s not at all uncommon to see at the celebration of the Eucharist a priest and/​or deacon who happens to be gay or lesbian. In all sincerity, the most often heard LGBT complaint around St. Mark’s is that we as a group are too inactive … primarily because we are so immersed in the church community as a whole and not seen as separate.
What one will find is that St. Mark’s is a church with a diverse membership. The first paragraph of the Sunday service bulletin reads, «St. Mark’s embraces many gifts and voices and persons of a variety of backgrounds and lifestyles, and welcomes all persons in their spiritual journey.» A commonly said prayer is as follows: «We pray for an end to all prejudice and wrongful discrimination, be it based on race, color, age, nationality, political affiliation, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class, or creed.» All people are welcome at St. Mark’s.
For me, worship requires good music. In that regard St. Mark’s is stellar for a church of its size. If you enjoy music in the English Choral Tradition, you’ll appreciate what St. Mark’s has to offer. But it’s not all music, as the liturgy and spoken word are given careful thought and are beautifully practiced.
When looking at the congregation, it would be fair to say that it is well educated to intellectual. It is also mostly older and even aging. If St. Mark’s is to have a future, this parish does need to work harder at attracting younger members and families That said, the choir seems to be the doorway for those who are younger … and there is a small but active 20 & 30-​something group.

One friend once said «a Berkeley girl converting to Christianity now that’s punk rock»… and while it is defiantly a bit odd if you went to St. Mark’s you’d understand.
St. Mark’s awesome. It is incredibly open, welcoming, tolerant, and beautiful. The Rector Robbin Clark is incredible. Her homilies are always intelligent, relevant and entertaining.
It has all the beautiful tradition of a Catholic or Anglican church but is totally progressive. It is very gay friendly and perfect for the Berkeley intellectual crowd.
Not to mention the church itself is gorgeous with stunning stained glass and great acoustics. I totally want to get married there someday!

This is an OK place to go to church, but after trying to attend here for several years, I finally gave up.
In many ways, this church has a great deal to offer. The building is impressive and the rector generally has good, intelligent homilies, plus, the church has excellent choir – certainly one of if not THE best in the east bay; But this community as a whole definitely has an identity crisis that they sadly just can’t seem to get past. The church is located directly across the street from the Cal campus (perhaps the closest of all the campus churches in some sense), yet few to no students attend church there. Why? A good question, but it probably has something to do with the fact that in my 8 years at Cal I have never once noticed an Episcopal presence on campus. No displays or tables in Sproul Plaza, no recruiting, no leafleting, no programs or lectures – nothing Every other flavor of religious organization is there making their presence known, but nothing from the Episcopal church from across the street. How odd considering the place has a great deal of potential.
This in turn leaves a generally aging congregation who seem set in their ways and current roles with little to no interest in reaching out to the broader community or having new people joining their somewhat ossified group – pretty closed even by Episcopalian standards. As a result, the community seems to get what they want – few new people and a stilted sense of mission in an otherwise very exciting part of the country. And thus I guess they’re pretty much left alone and continue on unchanged, which again seems to be the way they like it.
But the kicker for me was that one Sunday I heard sort of an anti-​gay tinged announcement from one of the members during (ick) a particularly drawn out announcement time. I initially of chalked it up to weird unstable parishioner fluke, but after I noticed the remarks reproduced in the parish newsletter, I was finally convinced that this was definitely not the church for me.

I’m not religious and I don’t live in the East Bay, but I have been here a number of times. Why? To perform with my singing group, Musae. The place is cozy without being tiny, has wonderful acoustics, and is perfectly situated (a few blocks from BART, restaurants, and the main part of the UC campus).