WITCHES, ghouls and ghosts are not welcomed in many church circles these days but one vicar positively encourages them.

Alistair Stewart-Sykes is throwing a party for Hallowe'en on October 31- complete with apple-bobbing, fancy dress and competitions.

Hallowe'en is an ancient festival which is meant to frighten away bad spirits and is not at all anti-Christian, he says.

"The party is to try and encourage children off the streets into a safe place, rather than be out in the dark, frightening vulnerable people with trick or treating," he said.

And he's also quite happy for naturists to advertise in his parish magazine.

"They are law-abiding people and they have as much right as any other people in society to advertise their activities," he said.

Mr Alistair has caused quite a splash since he passed up a job as a Cambridge lecturer to become a country vicar at St Mary's Church in Sturminster Marshall. Babies get plonked in the font at baptisms and adults get the treatment in a tin bath.

A classics scholar and proud father of triplets, Alistair was lecturing at a theological seminary in New York before his current job.

He continues to publish learned tomes and attend high-powered seminars on early Christian practice. It's that background which has led to his baptismal style.

"All baptisms are fun - it's the moment when a child or adult becomes a child of God," he said.

He conducted a recent one with Bishop of Sherborne Tim Thornton and a Bulgarian Orthodox Archbishop in attendance.

Alistair has a deep attraction to Eastern forms of Christianity and his own conversion took place during a baptism in Egypt.

"A gallon of holy water was thrown over me," he said. "He was chucking water out of a bucket at everyone.

"A white Protestant wouldn't have recognised it as Christian but there was a sort of moment at that point where it all made sense."

He has a Coptic cross tattooed on his wrist but discounts suggestions that he's unusual.

"I am a pretty ordinary vicar doing ordinary vicary things - visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved to the best of my ability, preaching the Gospel, teaching the kids," he said. "But we maintain scholarship at the highest level in terms of early Christian worship and theology."

The party takes place in the old school, opposite the church.

First published: October 30