Eurobishop

The Malines Conversation Group gathered on Saturday at the Sofia Centre just outside Helsinki for our annual sessions. The Malines Group brings together Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians working for the visible unity of our two Communions. On Sunday on a visit to Porvoo we received generous hospitality and warm words from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland Bishop Bo-Göran Åstrand of Borgå (Porvoo) encouraging the members of the Conversations in our work for unity. Thanks to the Porvoo Agreement between the Anglican Churches in Britain and Ireland and most of the Nordic/Baltic Lutheran Churches, I was able to concelebrate the Sunday Mass in Porvoo Cathedral with a Lutheran priest. This was not only a sign of our unity in Porvoo but holds out a vision of visible unity with those with whom we are not yet in communion, especiallly the Roman Catholic Church. Our first session of the Conversations began in the presence of some invited ecumenical leaders of the Finnish Churches....

The congregation of Christ the King in Tampere was established as a joint ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Diocese in Europe back in 2006. Both the Finnish Church and our own see this as a concrete way to put the Porvoo Agreement into action. The Church now has a very interesting outreach to the neighbourhood in Tampere, especially with younger folk and students. The congregation members are a very international group from Finland, other parts of Europe including the UK, Africa and Asia. Fr Tuomas Mäkipää, the Chaplain of Helsinki, and Area Dean of Finland, oversees the Anglican collaboration in Christ the King.  Fr Amos Manga, an assistant priest in the Anglican Church in Finland, lives in Tampere and has a particular relationship to this congregation which ministers to many from the South Sudanese community, most of whom were refugees who were welcomed to Finland close to 2 decades ago. Fr Amos Manga and Bishop and Mrs Repo I was able to preside...

  On Saturday 22 April, the Church of St Edmund’s Oslo, with its Chaplain the Revd Canon Joanna Udal participated in a city-centre ecumenical event designed to bring the quite secular Norwegians back into touch with their Church once again. The Cathedral in Oslo and two other parish Churches hosted celebrations highlighting history, culture, music, and, importantly, the Church’s work to combat environmental degradation and to encourage interfaith understanding and respect.  Canon Udal was able to speak to the gathering and bring Anglican greetings to this important event.  I was pleased to be able to have conversations with Bishop Kari Veiteberg of Oslo, who is a leading voice for the social justice work of the Church. The weekend was principally for pastoral duties, at St Edmund’s for baptisms and confirmations and in Bragernes Church in the city of Drammen, for the confirmation of members of the South Sudanese Maban Community, a community of refugees who are largely of ...

On Sunday 30 October, the Archbishop of Uppsala, the Most Revd Dr Antje Jackelén retired. Archbishop Jackelén is a long-standing friend of the Church of England and as the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden has played a significant role as one of the primates of the Churches which are in communion as a result of the Porvoo Agreement. In her closing sermon during the High Mass at which she laid down her crozier the Archbishop preached on “life together” as a description of what God wants for the people of the world:  “ To live together. In the home, among neighbours, in villages and cities, in a society that is shaped by everyone's participation, in the interdependence between all the countries of the world, in community with all other living beings on a planet where the climate is changing, and to live together with and before existence's deepest secret, that we, along with most people on earth, call God”. Many testimonies and speeches were given recognising Archbishop Jackel...

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...

Bishop Andreas Aarflot (seated) with Bp John Hind, Bp Stephen Platten, Dr Colin Podmore, Bp David Tustin, the Very Revd John Arnold, Dame Dr Mary Tanner and Bp Christopher Hill Bishop Andreas Aarflot was the bishop of Oslo from 1977 to 1998. He was also one of the architects of the Porvoo Agreement between the British and Irish Anglican Churches and the Lutheran Churches in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. In fact, it was he who coined the title for the official report of the conversations:  Together in Mission and Ministry. Bishop Aarflot, now aged 90, was in London recently to continue some ecumenical research. The priest of the Norwegian Church in London, the Revd Torbjørn Holt, a good friend of this diocese, invited a group of "old Porvoo hands" to a lunch and conversation in honour of Bishop Aarflot's visit. Fr Holt managed to gather many of the ecumenical leaders who worked on the Porvoo Agreement. I was able to say to the Bishop that the work the ecumenical pion...

The Revd Torbjørn Holt, the Norwegian priest in London, and a good friend of this Diocese in Europe, celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a priest in the Church of Norway last Monday 25 June at the Sjømannskirken in London. The special mass was celebrated by Fr Torbjørn according to the rite of the Scottish Episcopal Church, to recall that part of the UK where he first ministered. In his homily, Torbjørn remembered with affection and gratitude Bishop Per Lønning who ordained him in Fana Church in Bergen. Colleagues and friends (incluing three Anglican Bishops - Southwark, Croydon and myself) joined Fr Torbjørn for the service, and for a splendid Norwegian summer supper in the newly renovated front garden of the church in Bermondsey. The Revd Canon Jonathan Boardman, who is just finishing his ministry as Chaplain of All Saints Rome, and a close friend of Fr Torbjørn, was the assistant priest at the mass. Gratulerer , Torbjørn!

St Alban's Anglican Church in Copenhagen describes itself as a growing, diverse and inclusive Christian community. I can certainly attest to this being the case from my many years of episcopal oversight of this parish. Children and adults from every part of the world form the congregation, united by Eucharistic worship in English, according to the rites of the Church of England. The diversity contributes to making St Alban's a parish rich with varied gifts.  The ministry team itself is very diverse. A new chaplain has just arrived, the Revd Smitha Prasadam. Smitha comes originally from Bangalore India. On my parish visit last weekend, which had been arranged about a year ago for confirmations, Smitha had not yet even been licenced. (That will happen this coming Saturday at a service at which Archdeacon Colin Williams will preside). Smitha has two priests who assist her in an auxiliary capacity, one is a Dane but a priest of the Church of England, none other than our ow...