Bangor seminary to award 26 degrees

BANGOR – Two of the city’s oldest institutions will combine forces today when Bangor Theological Seminary holds its 188th commencement at Columbia Street Baptist Church.

Twenty-six students will receive their seminary degrees in the church built to look more like a union hall than a house of worship.

It is the first time BTS has held graduation ceremonies at Columbia Street Baptist, which is a member of the American Baptist Churches in the USA.

Originally called Second Baptist, the church in downtown Bangor was a mission of First Baptist, now located on Center and Park streets.

It was built in 1845, just 30 years after the seminary was founded, to minister to woodsmen and loggers who gathered in Pickering Square when Bangor was the nation’s bustling lumber capital.

“This is a great, we’re very excited about it,” the Rev. Peter Sprague, pastor of Columbia Street Baptist, said Thursday. “This is part of our ongoing efforts to create more community access to our facility.”

Traditionally, graduation was held outside on the seminary’s historic campus on Union Street. Last year, BTS held commencement exercises at its Portland campus at State Street Congregational Church for the first time.

In 2005, the spring before the seminary moved from its historic campus on Union Street in Bangor to Husson College, graduation was held at First United Methodist Church on Essex Street because of bad weather.

The Rev. Maren Tirabassi, pastor of Union Congregational Church in Madbury, N.H., and a national expert on worship, will give the commencement address. The former poet laureate of the Granite State has served urban, rural and suburban churches.

She said Thursday that her remarks would help graduates look ahead to their ministries and life after the seminary. Tirabassi said she planned to illustrate the commonalties she had found in her varied experiences.

At graduation exercises, the seminary will award nine Doctor of Ministry degrees, eight Master of Divinity degrees, seven Master of Arts degrees and two Bangor Plan degrees, which allow students to pursue their Master of Divinity degrees while completing undergraduate degrees.