Churches celebrate millennium

A service will be held in the Millennium Dome

Hundreds of thousands of people are celebrating 2,000 years of Christianity on Sunday in a series of events across the UK.

Churches are taking over football grounds, race courses and even a bus station, as part of the Pentecost 2000 Festival

Up to 500,000 Christian worshippers, including 36 bishops and hundreds of clergy from across the world, are gathering to celebrate the religious significance of the millennium.

The Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy O'Connor will preach at the Millennium Dome.

The service from the Dome will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 just after 0800 BST on Sunday.

The Archbishop of Westminster will lead celebrations

The Archbishop of Canterbury will also take part in a huge festival at Gateshead's International Stadium.

Other events include a festival of worship, music and theatre at Cheltenham Racecourse, to be attended by the Princess Royal on Saturday, and an open air service at Walsall bus station in the West Midlands on Sunday.

The country-wide extravaganza will feature on BBC One's Songs of Praise programme on Sunday afternoon.

The festival was organised by the Churches' Millennium Office to coincide with the Pentecost, when Jesus' disciples joined together for a feast in Jerusalem shortly after Christ's ascension.

The event includes contributions from Anglican, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal churches.

Churches' Millennium officer, the Rev Stephen Lynas, said: "In this millennium year we want to stress Christian unity.

"In many places it will be the first time all the local Christians have gathered together since the Reformation."