The Rev. Carri Patterson Grindon lost her church to the Eaton Fire on January 8, 2025. On Sunday, one year after the blaze destroyed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Altadena, she will serve as officiant for a Climate Evensong service at All Saints Church in Pasadena.
The 5 p.m. service, designed by seismologist and climate advocate Dr. Lucy Jones as artistic director, is framed within traditional Anglican Choral Evensong and explicitly connects the January 2025 fires to climate change. Bishop John H. Taylor will offer opening remarks; choristers will include members of congregations that lost buildings or homes. The service is intended to move participants from lament for what was lost to commitment to climate action—what Dr. Jones calls praying “with integrity in the face of climate change.”
Dr. Jones, who spent 33 years with the U.S. Geological Survey and founded the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, serves as senior warden at St. James’ Episcopal Church in South Pasadena. According to the service introduction she prepared, the fires “did not happen in a vacuum” but “are part of a pattern in a warming world, where longer fire seasons, hotter temperatures, and deeper droughts make extreme events more likely.”
The Eaton Fire, which ignited on January 7, 2025, burned 14,021 acres and destroyed 9,414 structures, according to Cal Fire. The agency reported 19 fatalities. The Palisades Fire, which started the same day, burned 23,448 acres and destroyed 6,837 structures.
The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles lost one church building and two clergy rectories in the fires. St. Mark’s Altadena, where Grindon had served as rector since 2009, was destroyed on the morning of January 8. The congregation, founded in 1906, now worships at St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church in Eagle Rock.
In Pacific Palisades, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church lost two clergy rectories, though its main sanctuary survived.
“We have lost everything physical,” Grindon said after the fire. “All of our vestments, the things that clergy wear; all of the vessels we use to serve communion; most of our records.”
In a message to her displaced congregation in January 2025, Grindon said: “Whether you’re in hotels or AirBnbs, driving in your car, staying in the homes of family or friends or strangers who aren’t strangers anymore, the bonds among us are bonds that cannot be severed.”
The Climate Evensong is hosted by the diocese’s Bishop’s Commissions on Climate Change and Liturgy & Music. The Commission on Climate Change was established in March 2022. Dr. Jones delivered the keynote address at the diocese’s first Climate Change Summit in September 2023.
According to the service organizers, the Climate Evensong will follow the traditional Anglican Choral Evensong format while incorporating themes of environmental stewardship and climate action. Dr. Jones wrote that the service invites participants “to share our grief and anger at what we have lost, to honor the pain that still lives in our bodies, our memories, and our landscapes.”
Bishop Taylor, the seventh Bishop of Los Angeles since December 2017, will provide opening remarks. Taylor reaches the mandatory retirement age of 72 in October 2026. The Rev. Antonio Gallardo, elected as the eighth bishop in November 2025, will be consecrated in July 2026 at All Saints Pasadena.
All Saints Church, located at 132 N. Euclid Avenue in Pasadena, is a prominent Episcopal congregation. The church housed more than 180 evacuees overnight on January 7, 2025, when the fires broke out. According to diocesan reports, 72 All Saints parish families lost homes in the fires.
The Climate Evensong is open to the public. A livestream will be available for those unable to attend in person. A reception will follow the service. For information, contact the church at (626) 796-1172 or Kholeman@allsaints-pas.org.
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