When it comes to memorable events, all eyes are on the Chapel. But the best is yet to come, writes Leonard Forman

It is impossible to spend much time in the Chapel without recalling some of the great occasions it has seen. There have been many over the years. But a few stand out. Aberdeen's identity as a European institution was at the forefront of a colourful ceremony that marked the end of the forty-fifth biannual conference of the Association of European Rectors which took place in Scotland, for the first time, in 1995.

More than 250 senior university representatives from 28 European countries in all manner of academic dress gathered in the Chapel to watch three leading European scholars receive honorary doctorates: Mr Miguel Martinez, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council, Professor Dr Hinrich Seidel, President of the University of Hanover, and the late Professor Andrew Rutherford, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London.

Interestingly, only a handful of Aberdeen's 250 or so honorary graduates have received the University's highest honour in its most historic of settings. Henry Catto, the former US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in 1990, and Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, received a doctorate on St Andrew's Day last year to mark the inauguration of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies.

Continuity and tradition are the heart of the life of the University, and a memorial service in the Chapel is a great tribute in itself. The service held for Professor RV Jones, a former Regius Professor of Natural Philosophy and Winston Churchill's wartime scientific adviser, in April 1998 had a tremendous dignity about it.

Many travelled to Aberdeen to pay their respects to one of the finest minds behind the British offensive against Nazi Germany. Among them his close friend the Vicomtesse de Clarens, a French resistance leader who sent back valuable intelligence to Britain, the Hon R James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, and Air Commodore Haines, who arrived by helicopter on the King's Playing Field minutes before the service began.

If, as one historian said, the past is the social memory of the present, it is when moments like these collide with the distinctiveness and beauty of the Chapel that people are genuinely moved and feel proud to be part of an 'old fashioned' university community.

That sense of community is what the Chaplain to the University, Rev Gillean Maclean, has worked hard to create. Her appointment in 1996 came with the distinction of being the first lady chaplain at Aberdeen in 500 years. She has presented the Chapel not only as focal point for worship but also as a space with a secular dimension.

When Alistair Allan, a postgraduate student in the English Department studying Scots Language, preached the first Sunday sermon in Scots in the Chapel in two hundred years in 1996, the whole country was talking about it. Then there were the splendid opera recitals given by postgraduate students of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. And the launch of the University's Sixth Century Campaign in 1999 when the Chapel was spectacularly floodlit in gold, red and blue to celebrate the announcement of one of the largest university fundraising drives outside Oxbridge.

However, there can be few greater occasions than celebrating your five hundredth birthday, and on 2 April, the Chapel's bells will ring out in thanksgiving, and history will be made right here in Aberdeen.

But after all the festivities are over, the Chapel will still be there for everyone to enjoy. Still there for you to gather your thoughts in its stillness. And still there to gently remind you of the great Bishop Elphinstone and his mission for Aberdeen: "the pursuit of truth in the service of society". Now that is something to celebrate for many years to come.