ROME (Reuters) The pledge at a vespers prayer service came despite challenges to greater unity posed by differences over women priests and gay marriage.
Source: Pope, Anglican leader, vow joint action on poverty and environment | Religion News Service
Here are two men I deeply love and respect.
Friday 8th July 2016
This is ‘not a time to fear’ but a time to trust God, the Archbishop said in the opening speech of Synod’s debate on the EU referendum today.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York added the item as urgent business to the Synod agenda, with the members’ consent.
Read the full text of the speech:
The length of the EU referendum campaign, the high turnout and the clarity of the result means, it seems to me, that whatever our view of what we would have preferred, we must now deal with the world as it is, and seek not merely survival after Brexit – if we were one of the 48 – but the common good, the flourishing of all our citizens and the seizing of the opportunities offered to our nation; above all to witness to the Kingdom of God. Continue reading “Synod of the Church of England – Archbishop Opens Debate on EU Referendum”
Russell Starr , CoS & Justin Welby, CoE
During the current annual Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), delegates, which included my son, Rev. Daniel Manastireanu, the first ethnically Romanian minister in the CoS, has approved the Columba Declaration, ‘that recognises their longstanding ecumenical partnership and lays the groundwork for future joint projects’ (see HERE). Of the about 850 commissioners to the assembly, 50 voted against this motion and 49 abstained (see HERE). A similar motion was approved by the C of E’s General Synod in February.
Ikon of St Columba, a gift I gave to my son, on his ordination as minister in the CoS, and
St Columba, pictured in a stained glass window at Iona Abbey, which he founded in the sixth century
‘The agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Scotland has been called the Columba Declaration, after Saint Columba [also called Columcille], an Irish abbot and missionary who was credited with spreading Christianity in Scotland. ‘ (see HERE) Continue reading “The Columba Declaration – Ecumenical Agreement Between the Church of Scotland and the Church of England”
Today was the burial service
for my friend Cristi Tepes. May God rest him in peace with the saints.
I though this sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is really fitting for this occasion. Here is how he introduces it on Facebook.
When someone we love dies we never “get over it”. Instead we learn – ever so slowly – to live with the gap that’s left, and we gradually start to rebuild.
After our first daughter died following a car crash, 32 years ago, when she was less than one year old, we would go to our church in London. There people loved us and looked after us. They helped us to start rebuilding. So it was very special to preach at that church last week at a carol service in support of Child Bereavement UK.
In my sermon I talked about how my wife Caroline and I eventually came back to that great puzzle: the God that so loved the world that he sent his only son to live a risky life among us, and die so unfairly and before time. And how he did this so that all who believe in him should not have that sense of endless death and destruction – but have the hope of life and the knowledge of a future, and the life that’s somehow rebuilt around us by the grace and love of God.
Now every year we spend the anniversary of Johanna’s death together as a family. We have some fun, do something silly. There’s always that bitter reality, and yet there’s now that hope.
So my prayer for those who are in those darkest of dark moments, which I remember so well, is for that hope that heals and strengthens and draws us forward, because that child who was born and risked and died and rose again, and offers life to us and to all we love. Continue reading “Archbishop Justin Welby’s Sermon at the Child Bereavement UK Carol Service”
THis is a very refreshingly natural dialogue.
Thursday 14th May 2015
Sermon preached by Archbishop Justin Welby at the Ascension Day Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.
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Acts 1:1-11, Luke 24:44-53
Ascension is about power and victory, but not as we know it.
If you’re a fan of Star Trek you’ll hear the allusion: “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.” Though I’m told no one ever actually said that, any more than Sherlock Holmes said, “Elementary, my dear Watson”. But even though I am not a Trekkie it’s a good line.
Ascension is about power or victory, but not as we know it. The accounts include words like ‘power’, ‘Kingdom’, ‘witness’, ‘proofs’, and ‘promise of the Father’ – such that the disciples, who weren’t any quicker on the uptake after the resurrection than before, ask about the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel. Continue reading “Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ascension Day Sermon”
Justin Welby is Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury.
The interview begins at minute 4.55. It is interspersed with other short statements and video presentations on the Christians in the Middle East, with commentaries unfortunately only in Arabic.
Revolutionary love: Archbishop Justin’s lecture on evangelism….
Here is a recent message on the importance of evangelism by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Friday 20th February 2015
In this talk given at St Paul’s Cathedral last night, the Archbishop of Canterbury reflected on what makes a good Lent for individuals, communities and society as a whole.
Some things stick in the memory. In 2004, when I wasworking at Coventry Cathedral, I was in a part of Africa which was in the midst of some very serious fighting. A group of black-clad militias was moving across the area, killing, looting, burning.
With a colleague I drove into the area where the fighting was going on to a small town that was under siege, or had been. On the way there, after a long period in the car on very bad roads, we stopped for a few moment break. There was a series of burnt huts to our right, and I walked a few metres towards them.
Around me rose ash. It was this time of year; in fact it was the Monday before Ash Wednesday. The ash rose in clouds, settling on me, from the burnt houses and, as I walked, I realised the ash from those who had been burned.
That was ash without hope, ash without change, ash rising in clouds to call all who saw it to acknowledge human evil but not to promise anything better. Continue reading “Archbishop Justin Welby – What Makes A Good Lent? Making Space for the Hope of Christ”
In a 52-page pastoral letter, issued ahead of May elections, Church of England calls for ‘fresh moral vision’ in British politics (see HERE a commentary about it the conservative journal The Guardian.).
You may find HERE a summary and the key points of this important document.
The Conservative government called it ‘hard-left propaganda’. No surprise there. As I have written in a tween tonight, ‘too much talk about the poor’ in it. and that is something conservativs and the rich they defent can hardly stomach. As Zoe Williams said in an article in The Guardian,
I can see why. Continue reading “Church of England Calls for ‘Fresh Moral Vision’ in British Politics Ahead of May Elections”
Archbishop Justin Welby
Archbishop Welby delivered on 17 November 2014 a lucid and worried address to the General Synod of the Church of England, following his about eighteen months of trips to meet with 36 Anglican primates, who serve the Anglican Communion existing now in about 165 countries.
Welby talks openly about the sad risk of a (hopefully temporary) schism in the Anglican Communion. mostly around homosexuality and the decision of women bishops. The Archbishop also talked about this risk in his recent interview for The Times, a summary of which can be found on THIS article in The Huffington Post (you may read HERE the text of the interview published in The Times).
Here is the text of Archbishop Welby’s synod address: Continue reading “Archbishop Justin Welby’s Presidential Address to the General Synod of the Church of England”
Monday 27th October 2014
One of the pleasures of this job is listening to the introductions that come to you just before you speak. That was a relatively mild one, compared to the head of the Friends of Liverpool Cathedral, when I became Dean and spoke to the Friends for the first time, and he said: “So glad to see so many people here to see the new Dean. Next time we have the conductor of the Liverpool Phil, so we will need a much bigger room.” [laughter]
One of you, probably not here, though it might well have been someone here, commented when I was appointed that I was someone of middle management talent appointed to a senior management job as an interim, without enemies, and that the real thing will come along in due course. A year later, he wrote: “I was entirely wrong. He has many enemies.” [laughter]
It’s a great. . . it’s something of a pleasure [laughter], it’s an interesting pleasure to be with you. . . I have to say, having over the last 18 months visited 36 provinces of the Anglican Communion, I see more and more the benefits of a strident, independent, campaigning and usually effective press – that’s not a comment on Leveson but on what you do. It gives a great deal of discomfort to many, including myself on numerous occasions, but it is usually of great value, and it is because of that sense that it’s worth having, that it’s such a precious thing, that I feel especially privileged to preach at St Bride’s on Wednesday week for the service commemorating journalists killed, kidnapped or injured in combat. It is worth remembering what risks your colleagues often take, and many of you will have taken. Continue reading “Archbishop Justin Welby’s Speech at the Parliamentary Press Gallery Lunch”
Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin is tipped to be the CofE’s first woman bishop
‘Women will be bishops in the Church of England after a historic vote in the General Synod, ending 40 years of wrangling.
An overwhelming 81 per cent of Synod members backed the change, during the sitting in York, and 75 per cent of the laity supported the move.’
(Read the whole article in The Telegraph.)
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See also on BBC News the article ‘What are the issues behind women bishops vote?‘
Thursday 24 April 2014
History provides as many uncomfortable facts as science. Neither can be ignored if anyone is going to talk sense. Last week, the Prime Minister wrote rather movingly in the Church Times about his sense of this as a Christian country.
It followed up other comments from Cabinet Ministers saying similar things, and finished on Tuesday with a very measured intervention by the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, whose own Christian faith is well known.
Judging by the reaction, anyone would think that the people concerned had at the same time suggested the return of the Inquisition (complete with comfy chairs for Monty Python fans), compulsory church going and universal tithes. More than 50 leading atheists wrote to the Telegraph in protest. Continue reading “Justin Welby on the United Kingdom as A ‘Christian country’”
In conversation with Rev. Nicky Gumbel, the Archbishop said he is “more optimistic about the church now than I have ever been in my life”.
Archbishop Justin has prayed for Christian unity and told church leaders that “we need to be a risk-taking church”.
The Archbishop was speaking this morning before an audience of more than 5,000 Christians on the first day of HTB’s annual leadership conference.
“We need to be a risk-taking Church. There is no safety in Christ – there is absolute security, but there is no safety,” he said during a question and answer session with the Rev Nicky Gumbel, vicar of HTB. Continue reading “We Need to Be A Risk-taking Church – Archbishop Welby Talks to Nicky Gumbel”
See more about this event on Archbishop Welby’s website.
This is an amazingly interesting article, be it long, and I highly recommend it to you.
Here is the beginning of it.
* * *
It’s a few weeks after the election of Pope Francis, and a notoriously leaky church source is talking about the revolution to come. The new leader of the faithful is a sharp operator who finds himself surrounded by ‘a medieval court system of hopeless characters, each jealously guarding their own silos of activity. There’s lots of crap people in key positions.’ Meanwhile, away from the court, bureaucrats churn out windy memos. They may not know it yet, but the process of ‘clearing out the weeds’ will start soon — possibly as early as this August.
That might seem over-ambitious, but we’re not talking about the sleepy Vatican. The source is an Anglican cleric and the ‘medieval court’ is Lambeth Palace; the shinypants bureaucrats are mostly in Church House, Westminster, headquarters of the General Synod. And the new man who can’t abide flummery is, of course, the Most Revd Justin Welby, oil executive turned Archbishop of Canterbury. Continue reading “The Spectator – The new God squad: what Archbishop Welby and Pope Francis have in common”
During the recent visit to Iasi of Rev Canon Michael Bourdeaux, a retired Anglican minister from Oxford, and former head of Keston College – the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism, I have found out something I did not know about the head of my church, Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
Rev. Bourdeaux told me that when he was young, Justin Welby visited Romanian twice, smuggling Bibles secretly into the country with a double sided van.
I have done a little bit or research and here is what I have found out. Continue reading “Justin Welby, New Archbishop of Canterbury – Bible Smuggler into Romania”
This short film about Pentecost features the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and others talking about “the big bang of the Church” and its meaning today.
The film, made by Lambeth Palace, features Archbishop Justin; Joel Edwards, International Director of Micah Challenge; the Ven. Jan McFarlane, Archdeacon of Norwich; and Holy Trinity Brompton’s Hayley Bisofsky.
Thanks to Southwark and Coventry Dioceses for pictures of Archbishop Justin’s prayer journey in March 2013.
Special thanks to Nick Clarke for assistance with editing.
//
Enthronement of Archbishop Justin Welby (photo, The Times)
Within a fortnight I was to see him being enthroned in St Augustine’s see in Canterbury.
On 21 March it was a bright and sunny morning in Canterbury. The population of that city had significantly grown because of the people who had come for the enthronement and people who came to make sure it went well without any incident. The narrow streets of the mediaeval city were packed with tourists, pilgrims and visiting clergy. Within a few minutes I started seeing familiar faces. The first person I bumped into was Metropolitan Kallistos, an elderly Orthodox writer and educator based in Oxford. Then, wherever I looked, there were familiar faces. I went to Marks and Spencer, not to shop but to make use of their toilet facilities, and there in the toilet I met the chair of the House of Laity of the Church of England, Tim Hind. The world is very small and in Canterbury it became even smaller. Continue reading “Malkhaz Songulashvili – Tales of Canterbury – 2 – The Enthronement”
Georgian Baptist Archbishop Malkhaz (third from the left), among other religious
leaders, at the enthronement of Justin Welby, the New Archbishop of Canterbury
NOTE: I have received today this text, from my friend Archbishop Malkhaz, together with the following note:
Dear Friends
Please find enclosed my reflections on the Enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I dedicate it to my Romanian Anglican friend, Dr Danut Manastireanu.
Yours,
+Malkhaz
—
Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili
Enthronement At Canterbury Cathedral · Events.
On Thursday 21 March, Bishop Justin Welby with be enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral as Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion.
For those who don’t know yet, Justin Welby is going to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
My virtual friend arson Clark on the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
I could not agree with him more
Episcopul Justin Welby de Durham va deveni al 105-lea Arhiepiscop de Canterbury şi lider al Comuniunii Anglicane la nivel mondial, succedându-i dr. Rowan Williams. “Simt un sentiment extraordinar de privilegiu acum că sunt unul dintre cei responsabili de conducerea Bisericii într-un timp de foame spirituală”, a spus prelatul de 56 de ani, tată a şase copii, care a lucrat în industria uleiurilor înaintea urmării vocaţiei religioase.
Biroul premierului britanic David Cameron a anunţat oficial numirea, spunând că a fost “opţiunea copleşitoare” a comisiei de numiri a coroanei britanice, un organism format din clerici şi laici. Episcopul Welby este binecunoscut pentru înalta sa spiritualitate şi pentru capacitatea de a înfrunta problematici complexe, dimensiuni care se consideră că îi vor folosi în contextul în care mersul la biserică continuă să scadă şi dat fiind că Biserica Anglicană este divizată pe teme precum femeile preot şi Episcop, hirotonirea homosexualilor practicanţi şi crearea de ceremonii de căsătorie pentru persoane de acelaşi sex. Continue reading “Episcopul Justin Welby ales în fruntea Comuniunii Anglicane”
An article published today in The Telegraph, announces that Rev. Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, may be announced this week as the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and head of the Anglican Communion worldwide.
Here is what the British daily writes about it:
Sources have confirmed that the Eton-educated bishop will be announced as successor to Dr Rowan Williams as early as Friday, after the Crown Nominations Commission put his name forward to Downing Street.
It marks a meteoric rise for the former oil executive who has been a bishop for only a year, but insiders described Welby as “the outstanding candidate”. Continue reading “Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, may become the next Archbishop of Canterbury”
Persona 