Good morning, Alexandria! Today is Thursday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2025. There are 90 days left in the year
🌤️ Today’s weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming east in the morning. Partly cloudy tonight, with a low around 52. Light east wind.
A Grammy-nominated quartet will perform this month at Virginia Theological Seminary.
The New York Polyphony will sing at a free concert at VTS’s Immanuel Chapel (3737 Seminary Road) at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
Virginia Theological Seminary, the largest of the accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church, welcomed 45 new students on Monday for the 2025-26 academic year, bringing total enrollment to 216 students from around the world.
The Alexandria seminary’s entering class includes students from 26 dioceses across the United States, as well as from Burundi and South Korea. The new students include 21 Master of Divinity candidates, seven Master of Arts students, seven Anglican Studies students, eight Pathway to Ministry students and two Diploma in Theology students.
A groundbreaking ceremony will be held next month for the construction of a memorial recognizing slave laborers who built Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).
Black slave laborers built the seminary in the early 19th century, and for the last five years, the VTS Reparations Program has awarded millions to direct descendants of those workers. At 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5, VTS will host a free gala at Coffield Refectory (3720 Bishop Walker Circle) celebrating the descendants with dinner, dancing, and a display of genealogical research compiled to date. The memorial groundbreaking ceremony will be held the following day, Sept. 6, at 12:30 p.m.
Many of Alexandria’s religious and elected leaders have paid tribute to Pope Francis since he died in Rome on Easter Monday, April 21.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, president of Virginia Theological Seminary, said that the world feels a little emptier today following the death of the 88-year-old pontiff.
Virginia Theological Seminary is defending one of its former students, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington Marianne Budde, for recently confronting President Donald Trump at Washington National Cathedral.
In a sermon on Tuesday, Budde asked Trump to have mercy on “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.” She also called on Trump to have mercy on communities “whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”
Nearly three years after Alexandria’s Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) launched a program to create reparations and research related to Black Americans enslaved or compelled to work at the school, a new lecture program this week is scheduled to look at what kind of progress has been made on that front.
On Wednesday, March 30, the Alexandria Historical Society, the Alexandria Black History Museum and the Alexandria Community Remembrance Project are hosting a virtual lecture to examine what that program has accomplished since it launched in September 2019.
What a week in Alexandria. Here’s the rundown.
Our top story was on President Joe Biden stopping by the Sportrock Climbing Center in Alexandria last Friday with First Lady Jill Biden and Governor Ralph Northam.
The Virginia Theological Seminary’s (VTS) ongoing effort to pay $1.7 million in reparations to the descendants of those enslaved at the school was highlighted this week in the New York Times.
The reparations program was launched in 2019, but the school started to issue payments to more than a dozen families in February.
It was a historic week in Alexandria. Here are some of the highlights.
President Joe Biden visited the Neighborhood Health COVID-19 vaccine site at Virginia Theological Seminary on Tuesday, just before announcing that the date for adults to get access to the vaccine has been moved to April 19.
Mayor Hosting Weekly Virtual Town Hall Tonight — “Thursday evening (May 14th) beginning at 8 PM, I will be hosting another virtual Living Room Town Hall Meeting. We will discuss the City’s on-going response to the COVID-19 outbreak and address any questions you might have. Please post questions and join us Thursday night!” [Facebook]
Volunteer Alexandria Needs Household Donations — “Can you donate some canned goods, diapers, or kitty litter? During COVID-19, there is a great need for a variety of goods — many of which you may have around the house or be able to pick up in your next shopping trip.” [Facebook]
