The venerable Andover Newton Theological School announced Wednesday, with tongue firmly in cheek, it would postpone Lent a week because of the recordbreaking snow that has been dumped on the region.

“Moving Lent seemed the least we could do,” President Martin Copenhaver said in a light-hearted statement that suggested the school was feeling as snow-dazed as the rest of Massachusetts. “Might it be controversial? Yes, but we are not only the oldest, we are also the boldest seminary in the country. Here we stand. We can do no other.”

“Part of our mission as a school is to be ‘radically open to what God is doing now.’” Copenhaver said. “Well, we have no idea what God is doing now, except this: Snow. Lots of snow.”