Eurobishop

  Clergy ordained in the Church of England are required to complete, following ordination, 3 years of further training called IME 2. In our diocese this post ordination programme is run by our Director of Ministerial Development, the Revd Canon Ulla Monberg. Over the past couple of years, due to the pandemic, the teaching and courses have been held virtually, using Zoom. However, there is at least one important module for which Zoom has severe limitations: liturgical theory and practice. So from 30 November to 3 December 17 of our curates in training posts gathered safely for the first face to face IME 2 sessions since the beginning of the pandemic. Canon Monberg chose as the venue Kardinal Schulte Haus in Cologne, well known to many in the diocese from other gatherings there such as Diocesan Synod. It has suitable space for safe gatherings, and excellent transportation links, a vital consideration since our curates come from Norway to Milan, and from Madrid to Moscow! Unfortunat...

The chapel where the first services were held, 50 years ago The Chaplaincy of the Holy Spirit Costa Blanca in Spain is among the largest in the Diocese in terms of numbers of congregations (8), the geograhical spread (about the size of Wales), the number of clergy who serve it (5) and the electoral roll. It is also celebrating its golden jubilee anniversary this year.  On the weekend of Advent Sunday, several events marked this milestone, including a confirmation service, with 11 candidates, of all ages. A splendid festive Evensong was held in the church where the first services were held 50 years ago.  Canon Marcus Ronchetti Fr Marcus Ronchetti, the Senior Chaplain of Costa Blanca, recently became an honorary canon of our Cathedral, and will be installed in Gibraltar in January. His stall will be that of St James, who is, of course, the patron saint of Spain.  

Joy filled St George's Paris on Saturday 13 November, when their Assistant Curate became their Assistant Chaplain. Fr Nicolas Razafindratsima, having successfully completed the requisite three year programme of Post Ordination Training was licensed at the request of the Chaplain of St George's Fr Mark Osborne, and Fr Nicolas, already well known and loved in the congregation, now joins the team of priests in this new capacity.  Fr Nicolas also has a day job: he is a statistical engineer/analist with the French Institute of Demographic Studies!   Among the duties of Fr Nicolas, which he shares with his colleagues, is ministry among the large number of Malagasy members at St George's. There are large numbers of Anglicans, organised in 6 dioceses, on the island of Madagascar. They belong to the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.  The licensing service was largely in French, with Malagasy used for the hymns and many parts of the mass. Fr Nicolas himself orig...

Not only is Holy Cross Church, Palermo, one of the architectural beauties in our diocese, it is also a place of active ecumenical and interfaith engagement. Excellent relations are maintained with the Roman Catholics, Waldensians and Orthodox, as well as with representatives of Muslim and Jewish communities.  On 7 November, I believe that ecumenical history may have been made when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Palermo, Corrado Lorefice, preached the sermon at the installation of the new Chaplain of Holy Cross, the Revd Dr James Hadley. Certainly this is a first in this diocese and in the Church of England itself it may well be unprecedented for a Roman Catholic Archbishop to take such a significant role in the installation of an Anglican parish priest!  Many other local clergy were present for the mass, including the Orthodox Archimandrite for Southern Italy, representing Metropolitan Policarpo of Italy. The depth of ecumenical commitment was further demonstrated when Monsi...

The indigenisation of Church of England life can be clearly be seen in the community of Sant'Alberto di Trapani in Randazzo, Sicily, a congregation which has recently celebrated its 5th anniversary. Saint Alberto di Trapani was a Carmelite priest in Sicily who died in 1307. He was known for his making himself poor in order to maintain a friendship and connection to the poor he served. The spirit of Sant'Alberto can be felt in this fledgling Anglican community in Randazzo, which, under the guidance of their priest, Fr Giovanni La Rosa, is seeking to be a place of friendship and service to all, especially the marginalised. The congregation uses very humble rented premises, but the place is filled with the beauty and love of a Christian community.  The celebration on 6 November was close to the Italian Day of National Unity and the Armed Forces, which commemorates the end of WWI for Italy. So many members of the Bersaglieri veterans, a special sharpshooter infantry group within t...

Casablanca: St John the Evangelist I often say to the congregations of the Diocese that the most important thing I do as a bishop is make new disciples and strengthen existing ones through the sacraments of initiation. In the Church of England it is a norm that the bishop presides at the baptism of adults , so that at the one liturgy the fulness of the initiation sacraments can be celebrated, as indeed they once were in the ancient Church: baptism, confirmation (or chrismation/laying on of hands) and Holy Communion. Those are very special and powerful moments indeed.  Oslo: St Edmund's But more frequently, my episcopal visits involve confirmations alone for those baptised in infancy, confirmation being the one part of Christian Initiation which has been reserved to bishops in the tradition of the Church of England. But even when separated in time from baptism, the sacrament of confirmation is understood to be a continuance of what has begun in baptism, celebrating what the Holy Spi...

This is the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Porvoo Agreement which brought Churches of Lutheran and Anglican tradition in the British Isles, Ireland and the Nordic and Baltic states into communion. The Nordic and Baltic Deanery which met in Finland decided to mark this silver jubilee with a special pilgrimage to Porvoo itself, to celebrate a festive mass in the Cathedral, together with the Bishop of Porvoo, the Rt Revd Dr Åstrand and members of the chapter of the cathedral.  Archdeacon Leslie Nathaniel preaching at the Porvoo Cathedral Bishop Bo-Göran assisting with Holy Communion Our own Archdeacon of Germany and Northern Europe, the Very Revd Dr Leslie Nathaniel was the preacher. Fr Leslie is a former Anglican Co-Secretary of the Porvoo Contact Group. He was able to place this historic agreement among Northern European Churches within the wider context of the journey of Christians to fuller unity, including the ground-breaking estabishment of the Church of South India in 1...

The former prison, now Hotel Katajanokka In these days when "setting God's people free" is a phrase used in Church of England programmes, the Synod of the Nordic and Baltic Deanery met in a place which was a prison from 1749 to 2002! Katajanokka reopened as a hotel in 2007 and provided a very congenial venue for the clergy and laity from Iceland to Estonia to meet for prayer, deliberation, decision and community from 7 to 10 October. Far from feeling imprisoned, the Synod was a time when we felt a liberation from the necessary contraints of the past year and a half. As it was the first of any synod gatherings in the Diocese to meet physically since the start of the pandemic, there was much to catch up on together. (A few members did participate by zoom). Clergy and laity shared much of what has been learned in the past 18 months, including, obviously, how services but also educational work such as confirmation preparation and certain kinds of meetings such as Church Counc...

It is not very often in the Church of England that we have to expand a church building in order to accommodate a growing worshipping congregation.  The fact that this should also happen in a country which is officially Muslim adds to the rarity of such an occasion. That is precisely what has happened in St John the Evangelist Church in Casablanca. Canon Medhat Sabry St John's has been home to Anglicans and other English speaking foreign Christians since 1906. In recent years the numbers of Christian migrants from all over the world has increased in this, the largest city in Morocco. Under the then Chaplain of St John's, the Revd Canon Dr Medhat Sabry, a plan was developed to build a community centre as a first phase, which was opened 2 years ago. The next phase was the extension of the actual church building, including the construction of a balcony, to be able to almost double the capacity for attendance at services. The historic church is considered to be part of the patrimony...