Professor Richard Carwardine gave a lecture in St Margaret's Church on Tuesday 7 July to mark the 200th anniversary year of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

In his Easter 2009 sermon in Westminster Abbey, the Dean spoke of the contrast between the solemnity of Holy Week and the joy of Easter, between the reality of suffering and the joy of new life. Christians, he said, need to live and work on both sides of the contrast.

Preaching on the 740th anniversary of the relics of St Edward the Confessor being enshrined behind the Abbey’s high altar, the Dean of Westminster spoke of the saint’s remains uniting Christians and pointing us to heaven.

On the Abbey’s dedication festival, the Dean identified the ultimate purpose of the Abbey as to give greater glory to God. That test must be applied to the Abbey’s daily life and work and to any proposed changes.

A special evening of Samuel Johnson readings on the 300th anniversary year of the birth of Dr Johnson. In association with the Johnson Society of London. Readers: Lance Pierson, Karin Fernald, Michael Bundock and David Nokes. Introduced by: The Reverend Dr Nicholas Sagovsky

In his All Souls’ Day sermon, the Dean faces the inevitable truth that we shall all die and asks us to be prepared for our own death.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, Nick Spencer, author of Darwin and God, delivers the 2009 Gore lecture, tracing Darwin's religious biography and asking what we can learn from this most courteous and humane of scientists.

Lying behind the modern democratic political system is a shadow structure that acknowledges the Sovereignty of Christ. The Dean said it was an important question how far elected politicians and we personally acknowledge in practice God’s Sovereignty.

‘Nothing less than Christ will do. We are to be imitators of Christ.’

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster. Celebrating the Annunciation in Passiontide helps us see both the beauty of God’s creation and the need for atonement between humanity and God.

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Oscar Romero is commemorated as a martyr in the Church of England’s liturgical calendar on 24 March each year. His image is among ten statues of martyrs of the twentieth century placed over the Great West Doors of Westminster Abbey in 1998.

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster. This evening the Lord Jesus Christ welcomes us to a meal, to supper with him and his closest friends. The occasion is unusual; this will be no ordinary supper. The circumstances are strange, a little disturbing: there are threats and rumours all around. We are in an odd place: the Lord of all has nowhere of his own, nowhere to lay his head, but a room has been found; preparations have been made.

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster.It is impossible for us to know what Queen Elizabeth I thought when she signed the Charter but it would not be surprising if she had thought of the turmoil the Abbey had undergone in the previous twenty years. The Charter makes it clear that she intended to end the turmoil. Of this renewed Collegiate Church, the Charter says that it is ‘in all future times to endure and to be inviolably observed.’ And so it has been for the past 450 years. There seems every reason to suppose it will continue as long as there is time on earth.

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster. The life of Westminster Abbey is so rich in the anniversaries of the men and women who are buried or memorialised here and of the great events that have happened through the thousand years and more of our wonderful story that to say of any year that it is likely to go down in history as remarkable is to make a bold claim. And yet, it is I believe justifiable in relation to this year that we are all experiencing.

Archbishop Tutu in his sermon on Ascension Day says that through worship we must 'open our eyes to the essential sacredness of life' and oppose injustice.

The late and slow emergence of daffodils and tulips after our long cold winter and in our late spring has somehow seemed right this year. In previous years I have often found a worrying mismatch between a blazing spring full of colour and vibrancy and the penitential Lenten mood of self-denial and abstinence. This year, in London anyway, the emergence of spring has, almost if not quite, waited for Easter: as if now nature with the Church is ready to celebrate the arrival of the season of hope and joy and new life.

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster. Saturday in the Octave of St Edward is set aside as a day when pilgrims are especially welcomed, as they have been since the 12th century, to St Edward’s Shrine. This Sung Eucharist celebrates St Edward’s life and holiness on the day of the national pilgrimage to his shrine.

The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster. The Dean’s sermon for the feast of the dedication, celebrating the consecration of the Abbey Church (current building) on 13 October 1269.

In the Dean’s All Saints’ Day sermon, he recognised the call for Christians, inevitably influenced by the world, to be positively engaged with the world for the sake of the Gospel.

Most of us come to this service tonight with vivid memories of departed relatives and friends, with a sense of loss and with a degree of pain. We remember those we have loved and who have loved us, those we love still, but from whom we are now parted. For some, the sense of loss and pain is recent and sharp; others have come to terms with the loss and find the pain deadened by the years. We know that those from whom we are parted would not have wanted us to grieve – and yet, naturally, we do, even when we are thankful for a long life well lived, or for a period of acute suffering and privation ended. Where death has been sudden or tragic death, we can be left mystified, bewildered as to what happened and why – and what might have been.