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NEWSLETTER FOR THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF ANTIOCH IN NEW ZEALAND AND INTERESTED FRIENDS   Feb. 1989.

S.Michael's Church, 72 Fingall St., Dunedin.                                                                                     - Fr.Jack Witbrock, KENT HQUSE,
 Church of S.Simon and S. Jude, Ashley                                                                                                  45-63 Canterbury Street, Ashley,
Church of S. Ignatius of Antioch, Auckland.                                                                                       No. 2 R.D., Rangiora. (O502) 5673
and occasionally in other centres.                                                                                                               -Fr Ilian Eades, 5 Alford Street
Waterview, Auckland. (O9) 884 449  
         


DATES FOR ASHLEY AND DUNEDIN FOR 1989:                                             (Services have been weekly in Auckland for some time)


ASHLEY (11 a.m.)                                                                                                        DUNEDIN (10 a.m.)

February 12, **                                                            Further                                                                  February 5, 19
March  12, **                                                            enquiries:                                                                    March 5, 19
April 9, 23                                                                  Presidents:                                  April 2, 16, 27-30 (HOLY WEEK)
May **, 21                                                                     Mr Elder (03)                                                            May 14, 28
 June 4, 18 (PENTECOST)                                               294 674                                                                    June 11, 25
July 2, 16                                                                   Mr Ayoub (024)                                                             July    9, 23
August 13, 27                                                                     43021                                                                   August 6, 20
September 10, 24                                                                                                                                      September 3, 17
October R, 22                                                                                                                                          October 1, 15, 29
Novermber 5, 19                                                                                                                                      November 12, 26
December 3, 17, 31                                                                                                       December 10, 24-25 (CHRISTMAS)

** on February 26 and May 7 a Liturgy has been arranged at 10 a.m. in the S.Saviour's Chapel at Cathedral Grammar School, cnr Park Tce & Chester St., ChCh. Later services may be arranged on other Ashley dates if support justifies it. On March 26 Fr. Ambrose is to celebrate at 10 in the Russian Church, Brougham St., ChCh.
IN JANUARY IT IS USUAL TO HOLD LITURGY WEEKLY AT ASHLEY AND MAKE NO VISIT TO DUNEDIN.
1

EDITORIAL
    SPOTLIGHT aims to record significant news of the Orthodox Church and Faith in New Zealand or of interest to people here; it aims also to foster communication amongst the Orthodox and those interested in Orthodoxy, but especially those of English language and New Zealand birth. It is therefore important to record here the great progress made in the Antiochian parish in Auckland since we recorded the ordinations in our last issue in late 1987.  Fr.Alan (as he then was) accepted the name Ilian (Arabic form of Julian of Homs) and has already made this name beloved by his devotion to God and to his people. We hear that since he and his family moved to Auckland, people have come to expect daily services in the Church at Waterview, and each major feast, as well as every Sunday, is observed with a Liturgy and some congregation.
    The expectation of regular worship has encouraged a number to seek membership of the parish, and a Sunday school is running. It is to Fr. Ilian's further credit that he has made friendly conaacts with the other Orthodox clergy, and established contacts with other Churches in the "Conference of Churches."
    We have also to record the value of the 1988 Conference of Churches FORUM as a point of-contact amongst the Orthodox attending. It was pleasant to renew friendship with Fr. George and members of the Romanian Church, and with Fr. Ambrose and Fr. Nicholas of the Serbian Church, and to hold services togetther throughout the conference. Two visits to Christchurch since then, especially the occasion of the exhibition of Russian Icons and Church materials in commemoration of the Russian millenium and the parish jubilee, have given time for more conversation and coordination of activities. Likewise it was a great encouragement to make friends with Fr. Philippos and Fr. Spiros and to renew friendships with many of the Greek people in Christchurch. While we must be sorry that their time here was so short, we can hope for continued cordial relations with fellow-Orthodox in Christchurch.

   Last year, a beginning was made with occasional Liturgies in Christchurch city, at the S.Saviour's chapel at Cathedral Grammar school. Three were held at 6-weekly intervals, and, although no one came who had not at some time come to Ashley, 2 of the occasions were well enough attended to justify a further trial. It must however be emphasized that:

         1. very considerable investment
has been made in the Ashley Church and centre, to make it congenial for Orthodox prayer,
         2. Ashley is as near in travelling time to ChCh
as many outer suburbs, because of the excellent motorway,
         3. no TEMPORARY use of a Church
can be really satisfactory, requiring the carrying of many sacred objects, books, etc.
         4. At least 3 cars travel to Ashley to each service from different sides of Christchurch, and the one or two occupants are most willing to take passengers.

   It was my hope that Ashley would eventually become a residential centre for Orthodox, specialising in catering for the needs of converts with an English language background. The Church was chosen for its style with which most converts would be familiar, and for its availability for continuous, daily worship. It is probable that this side of the project cannot be realised without attracting settlers or colonists, either Orthodox or well-disposed to the traditional christian spirituality. Our own land seemed a providential acquisition, divided as it is into 5 quarter- and 3 half-acre sections on 7 separate titles.

 The development of the East end of the land as an organic vegetable garden by an ACCESS scheme has revealed how much work is needed to maintain an intensive land use like this, and how much scope there would be for a simple country lifestyle even on this 1 hA. I mention this again in SPOTLIGHT in the hope that copies if scattered sufficiently widely may attract interest that has seemed absent so far..
  If there has been little interest in NZ in claiming the English cultural inheritance for the Orthodox Church, nevertheless we have to be pleased that in a few years a new, well-organised congregation has arisen in Canterbury capable of offering worship according to the authentic Byzantine norms so energetically published by our Antiochian brethren in New York; and that some people in Christchurch are able to make a spiritual home with us.
  So at the risk of boring people we are featuring the Ashley Church (in the snows of May 1988, used on our Christmas Card last year) and its location in North Canterbury for the benefit of those who have not already found it out by trial and error.
  I have also to record my gratitude for the kindness of the Gregorian Club, which was mentioned in a previous SPOTLIGHT as working in England for the restoration of the authentic Orthodox tradition of England. They have now invited me (and I have accepted) to serve on their committee. I consider this mainly an honorary appointment as I cannot do very much at 12,000 miles distance; and I appreciate this gesture very much.

  The Conference of Churches is meeting twice in the South Island this year; Mr. Elder is representing us at the Executive meeting in ChCh in March as I am in Dunedin that weekend; and I  hope to be accompanied by several of our people from various centres for the FORUM in Mosgiel (RC seminary near Dunedin) on May 12-14.
  As I said above, these meetings are chiefly valuable for the contacts among the Orthodox, since much of the business is of slight concern to our Church, being politically slanted and approaching unity from a humanist angle; but they are worth it just for bringing the Orthodox together - if they do. I shall be there and hope for some company.
 
2

Mr. James Read, known to many of our people, has written with some information concerning Orthodox events in Europe,.-" which may interest travellers:
" 1990:

Tuesday, 3rd June: Annual pilgrimage in honour of S.Willibrord at Echternach in Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The Saint was English born and is Apostle of Holland & Patron Saint of Luxemburg.
Sunday 17th June: Divine Li turgy at S. Albans, England, in honour of S. Alban, Protomartyr of Britain.
Sunday 28th June: Glastonbury pilgrimage, England. Akathist in afternoon, sometimes also Divine Liturgy in morning.
" There will also probably be two other events although dates are uncertain. The 'North Devon Pilgrimage' in honour of S. Nectan of Hartland, S. Brannoc of Braunton and S. Urith of Chittleharnpton. This is organised by Fr. John Marks.
" Bp. Kallistos & Fr. Yves Dubois will doubtless also have the S. Aldhelm Pilgrimage to Bradford On Avon.
" All these events will also be held in 1989, but fit together less compactly. Glastonbury usually gets about 5,000 as it is combined with the Anglicans."

    He also mentions the 1400th anniversary of S. David in Wales, concerning which information should be sought from Fr. Deinol or Archcimandrite Barnabas (no addresses given).
   editorial comment: it is good to note the enthusiasm of the English Orthodox for their own Saints, even though at times some historical imagination seems to creep in, so that Saints are promoted whose existence seems uncertain, and there seems a total lack of interest in the (Orthodox) prayers, rites and customs which these Saints, of whom we are certain, certainly used and loved. (At least so I am informed by the hon. sec., Greg. Club).

LIBRARY:
   Our parishes are quite well supplied now with reading matter on the Orthodox Faith and related subjects. The largest library is in Auckland, but owing to the regular grants made by the Government through the NCC for "Ecumenical Youth Work", we have, over the last few years, been able to build up the collections in Dunedin and at Ashley too. The order for 1988 included a number of booklets published by S. Vladimir's Seminary of the writings of the Fathers: three collections of sermons by S. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood, on marriage and family life, and on Wealth and Poverty (sermons On the Parable of Dives and Lazarus); and also the three Treatises of S. John of Damascus on the Divine Images.
    It is refreshing to find find that while the language of the translations is modern, the books consist not of predigested quotations arranged according to some contemporary subject classification, but of straightforward sermons etc. taken in their entirety from the authors' works; yet they are easy to read and while addressed to a situation many centuries old, still have clear application today. One cannot stress too strongly how important it is for Orthodox people to take their religious reading not only from modern Orthodox writings but also from the Fathers, and not through the mind of modern interpreters, but directly. It has been truly said that the Church does not travel through history as a train does through stations; it is an important characteristic of the Church that she does not leave her past behind, so that still today she is the Church of the Martyrs, of the Fathers, of the Ecumenical Councils, just as much as of the Greeks or the Russians of the 19th and 20th centuries. The sermons of S. John Chrysostom open to us a view of the Church in his day which can broaden our understanding of the catholicity of the Church's tradition, apart from the useful teaching he gives us on particular subjects. And the writings of S. John of Damascus give us another historical perspective, as well as being very informative about the ICONS, which play so important a rôle in modern Orthodox piety, as they did, but controversially, in his day. It is perhaps worth remarking that in his time the images defended were what is now known as ICONS, i.e. mosaics or paintings on wood; yet we look in vain in his writings, and in the Acts of the 7th Council, for any suggestion of the distinction that now appears to have entered a number of Orthodox minds, that the 2nd Commandnent forbad graven but not painted images. The revival of classical styles in the Renaissance, with paintings and statuary in the scientific-realist manner, wes for S. John far in the future; so was any idea that such things were alien to Orthodox Faith (because they arose in Italy?). His arguments apply equally to any images; the distinctions he makes are between IMPOSSIBLE images (of the Godhead of the Father, for instance), evil, pagan images (of false gods wno are really demons) and christian images of the Lord Christ in His visible Flesh, His deeds on earth, and His holy Mother and the other Saints.
We may well think that the best authentic school of icons is unparalleled for communicating spiritual vision, or that many modern religious works of art are sentimental and unworthy (which could be said equally of much religious music) but the value of the Fathers to us is partly that they help us to sift our received modern opinions (sound though they may be) from the perennial tradition of the Church. I recommend these patristic works to anyone wanting spititual reading. These and other books may be borrowed and we only ask that borrowers leave a note in the notebook so we don't lose track of them.
3

DUNEDIN PARISH:
       It was encouraging for Fr. Jack to find a Church filled with congregation and visitors on the first Sunday in February; all the seats were full. Maurice reminded us of the Committee's fund for repainting the outside of the Church (the walls and windows) which ought to be done soon and will require some $1000+ to be collected before the contractor can be asked to start. He emphasized that any donation,  however smal1,  would help.

     Orthodox Easter falls this year as late as it ever can, almost: April 30, and on a Sunday when service is to be in Dunedin. It is intended to provire the services of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (6p.m., 6p.m., 11.3Op.m.), and we hope that those who missed them so much last year (held at Ashley for the first time ever) will turn out well for-them this year. Fr. Jack will bring his family and other ChCh people hope to come.

THE ORTHODOX UNDERSTANDING OF THE CHURCH AND HER UNITY
 
   Recently Fr. Jack was lent a copy of Karl Rahner's encyclopaedia of theology, perhaps one of the best- informed books of reference published in the christian west. Among the articles of interest was that on the Eastern Churches, with a section on the Orthodox Churches. It was pleasing to see a constructive tone on the whole and an effort to understand; however it was evident that understanding still has some way to go; in particuar, the writer (German, some 20 years ago) represented the Orthodox as lacking in unity, and varying in doctrine between views that were described as more Catholic or more Protestant. In particular, Alexei Kbomyakov, whose work on the unity of the Church last century has had enormous influence on Orthodox thinking, is characterised as protestant in his teaching. It seems therefore good to try to set out once again how we Orthodox understand the Church and her unity, as simply as possible, and with a view to assisting our ordinary people in their service of Christ.
 
   We must say first of all that there is NO DOGMA on this subject. There are many things in the Orthodox tradition which never required to be defined by the Ecumenical Councils, mainly because they were never questioned by anyone within the Orthodox Church. That is not to say that it would be all right to deny them and think oneself Orthodox. There was NO LAW against any of the great heresies until they arose, and were in due course condemned; but that does not mean that they could have been believed without danger; for if they had been raised earlier, they would certainly have been condemned earlier. So I think we can helpfully set out the first sketch of the nature of Orthodox unity by saying something that may seem very uninspiring:
 
THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IS SIMPLY THE COMMUNION OF THOSE CHURCHES THAT ARE NOT ACTUALLY HERETICAL.

   Now that may seem to leave out a lot: but it seems to me that if we begin there we shall avoid the unrealistic expectations that so often lead to disillusionment and cynicism. It is historically true: the Orthodox Churches are those which continued to recognise each other as continuing to hold the faith of the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church after the falling-away of several schisms, culminating in that of Rome, which came under the anathema of the Councils by altering the Creed, the "Symbol of Faith". All the modern sects are schisms not from the Orthodox Church but from Rome or from bodies alreadv separate. In spite of these divisions, there remain large parts of the christian tradition intact in many christian bodies; but the integrity of the Faith is still of very great importance, or the sacred Ecumenical Councils would not have laid anathema on all who contradicted their decisions.

   But this definition, bald as it is, serves only as a sort of fence, to mark out the boundaries of the SPIRITUAL PASTURE. It is the pasture itself which matters. And this consists of: the teachings of Our Lord and His Apostles, the Prophets and all the Saints of God recorded in the Holy Scriptures and later writings received in the Church as wholesome and true; the rich inheritance of prayers and sacred ceremonies that have come down to us; and above all, the Holy Mysteries by which Christ through the Holy Spirit makes himself present in the midst of the Church so that we can call her not only his bride, but also even His Body. So we say that those Churches which are not heretical, which have the one Faith, are 'in 'communion' with each other. That is to say, that each Orthodox Church recognises in every other the one and the same Body of Christ, offered one and the same on every Altar and making the whole congregation to be BODY OF CHRIST. If  there are national styles, individual theories, even faults and defects and abuses that strain mutual loyalty, the unity remains so long as Cburches can regognise in each other the one Body. For there could not be more than One Body, plural and contradictory Bodies of Christ. To think this possible is the way to all confusion and nonsense. On the other hand, failure to discern the Body of Christ where It exists, is a serious sin which the Apostle tells us will lead to illness and death.
   So let us finish with a practical duty. The Body of Christ is there, in every Eucharist offered by every canonical priest of every canonical Orthodox Church anywhere, and at any time. And the same Ecumenical Councils lay the same anathema on those who fail  (3 times, according to Nicaea I) to be at the Eucharist on Sunday. As we said above, the Church remembers her past. She remembers the Martyrs for whom, for 300 years, the most dangerous thing you could do was be at the Eucharist. And she is not much impressed by excuses.
4


CHRISTMAS, 1989

TABLE OF SERVICES FOR 1990:

 Services in Auckland are weekly on Sundays at 10, and at other times as announced.

 Services on Sunday alternate between Ashley and Dunedin
(Ashley 11 a.m., Dunedin 10 a.m.), as follows:

            ASHLEY                                                                  DUNEDIN

December 25 (midnight), 31                                                            December 24  (for Christmas)
January 7, 14, 21, 28                                                                         * *
February 11,  25                                                                                February 4, 18
March 11,  25                                                                                    March 4, 18
April 8 (Holy Week to Sat.), 22                                                      April 14-15 (Easter  Midnight ), 29
May 6,  20                                                                                          May 13, 27
June 3, 17                                                                                           June 10, 24 *
July 1, 15, 29                                                                                      July 8, 22 *
August 12, 26                                                                                   August 5, 19 *
September 9, 23                                                                                September 2, 16, 30
October 7, 21                                                                                    October 14, 28
November 4, 18                                                                                November 11, 25
December 2, 16, 30                                                                           December 9, 23

**  No services in Dunedin in January.   * June 24,  July 22,  August 19: in 1989 the corresponding Sundays were omitted for the winter, and may be again.  Pastoral visits to other centres may cause the cancellation of one or two Sunday services besides, but the table will continue to run indefinitely. Daily services also at Ashley (8, 12, 3, 6 when possible). ________________________________________________________________________

A NEW COMPANION PUBLICATION

  For some months now we have been receiving the parish magazine of St. Ignatius' parish in Auckland. This appears monthly and is edited by Jim Holland, containing news of the parish and articles of general interest. It is clear that St. Ignatius is resuming its natural place as our largest centre and going from strength to strength. SPOTLIGHT has become less frequent over the years, and will probably appear annually.

 We also receive THE WORD from New York, (ANTIOCHIAN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN ARCHDIOCESE, Publications Dept., 358 Mountain Road, Englewood, NJ 07631) as well as the magazine of the EVANGELICAL ORTHODOX Mission: AGAIN. (P.O. Box 106, Mt. Hermon, CA 95041).

 These are recommended to anyone interested in the mission of the Church; AGAIN is particularly encouraging in showing how christians of revivalist background could think their way through to the wholeness of their Faith and how they can then persuade others. Since its incorporation into the Antiochian Archdiocese, the Evangelical Orthodox Mission has made a considerable impression on our Church in America, as the pages of THE WORD testify.


EDITORIAL

 Dearly beloved,
                        What I have to say in this issue has been said in part in a number of sermons recently and I ask forgiveness of those whom I bore by repetition; however I feel these things must be said if God will grant me the grace to say them well. Amen.
 Some of you may be aware of a correspondance with the Conference of Churches and others in which I have come to feel that, in a world where many are agitated by many causes, some noble, some foolish, some even wicked; our vocation as a Church must be, above all, to pray. The trouble with saying this sort of thing is that you start getting a gratuitous reputation for sanctity if you even mention prayer. An old friend from Lyttleton said it to me again the other day: he credited the spiritual revival of the parish (as he saw it) to my prayers as Vicar, and it was clear that this was well on the way to becoming some sort of legend. I only, I told him firmly, read the daily services which all priests were obligated to say. If this had been neglected by others, I didn't want to comment on that; but only did what was my minimum duty.
  As a matter of fact, while in Lyttleton, I felt overshadowed by the spiritual giants who preceded me: Canon Coates, who covered the entire interior of the Church in paintings (of which the window paintings now remain) and who retired 'to devote himself totally to his spiritual functions'; and another who was accustomed to sleep in his coffin every night during Lent. In Dunedin, a parishioner was once heard to whisper, ' do you know he goes to the Church every day'. Well it is kind of people to go on like that; but there is really nothing special about it; it is simply a duty to pray; a duty of sinners as well as saints. It is well expressed in the Psalm: One thing have I asked the Lord, which I will require: even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

  Throughout the world where there are Churches (or even mosques and temples) people flow in and out of them all day long, making their devotions. It is a great lack in our country that Churches are mostly locked and seldom visited.
   As you know, I hoped by coming to Ashley to be more free for the task of prayer, and to have some company in it. It has not pleased God to send us any companions here as yet; but I am encouraged to know of individuals round the country and abroad making a similar attempt to maintain a round of prayer. There is a certain danger in isolation, a danger of which I have been very much aware lately; and I have felt the need to reach out to others for their prayers, both in letters, and in sermons. It has been a strong support to know that the Church's prayer in a variety of ways, is being offered by those who are partly known to each other even if not seen.

 And is not our world in need of prayer in our day? We are seeing in the news every night events which raise great hopes. These things did not come out of nothing. Concerning the development of communist countries, however we may evaluate them, we cannot forget the prayers that have been offered by Orthodox faithful over the decades, and offering their sufferings; both in Russia and in the diaspora. It was perhaps prophetic that Fr. Dmitri Dudko, in his question-box sermons some years ago, said that he believed that believers in Russia still had enough faith to lift up unbelieving Russia and carry it to the foot of the Cross of Christ. As the hopeful events did not arise without prayer, so they could just as easily collapse unless supported by prayer. It would seem from news programmes that reforms etc. have been brought about by political factors: protests, marches, strikes, sit-ins- all the paraphenalia of modern activism. Doubtless this has had its place for those who believe themselves to have a vocation for it. But it is not the whole story. As I write, we are shocked by the assassination of a Lebanese president who raised so many hopes and whose election represented the result of so much patient work by so many. We may never know how and by whom he was killed and why. But is not part of the reason: that we did not pray enough, and that our sins gave an entrance to the powers of evil?

  In this century, where so much attention has been given to improving the world by political action, we have seen slaughter, oppression and torture, starvation, on a scale that far exceeds that known in the centuries when men gave most of their attention to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not my purpose here to refute the lie that religion causes miseries; that is sufficently refuted by the miseries that have multiplied as faith has been cast aside. My point is this: when we had finished our wars "to end wars" or to overthrow tyranny, we told ourselves we must build a world worthy of those who had given their lives; but we did not (apart from a brief spurt of piety in the early 50's) set ourselves to redeem the evils of the years of slaughter by prayer. The brutal legacy of two world wars: does it still lie unredeemed upon our civilisation, waiting for compassion, beauty, patience, nobility, and all the lost values and virtues to be rebuilt as the monastries built them during the centuries in which Europe slowly arose from barbarism, only to be cashed in in one generation which plunged us back again?

   My attention has been drawn recently to our local right-to life association, the equivalent of SPUC elsewhere. In their literature one reads that our country boasts over 10,000 annual abortions: the vast majority not for hard cases such as danger to the mother's life, the result of rape of abuse, but simply for the convenience of mothers of families who already have enough children thank-you. Even those of us who still remember the horror with which humanity regarded abortion until our time, are easily worn down by prevailing attitudes; as we are by an increasing unwillingness in our society to share the burden of compassion: so that we succumb again to the rhetoric of devil-take-the-hindmost which one thought had been damned forever by the writings of the good and great Charles Dickens.
  Can anyone doubt that our world is in desperate need that Christians should say their prayers faithfully and regularly - when they feel like it and when they don't, day in, day out, in our Churches, in their houses, wherever they are?
  I have realised recently that our "English" Orthodox clergy at least are conscientious in saying the Church's prayers daily, each in his place. But the clergy should not be left on a lonely eminence; it is a spiritual danger for one thing, and for another, you really don't have to be a cleric to find your way round the Church's prayers. The devotions in the "Pocket Prayer Book" are simple enough, and full of the spirit of the Church's prayer; and anyone who can manage the programme listings in the Listener ought to be able to follow a simple order of daily Matins and Vespers according to our (remarkably cheap) service books or some other form conformable to the immemorial christian tradition of prayer. Or even to read some of the Psalms each day aloud in a decent translation will lead one into the world in which saints have lived down through the ages. Those of us who have had the valuable experience of knowing the various strands of forms of worship that have come down to us from the ancient Church and which form a bond of unity discernable even under christian divisions, know that what gives the common "flavour" to all these varieties is that they are based on the reading/singing of the Psalms and that all the hymns, prayers etc. are full of allusion to the Psalms and other prayers and hymns of Holy Scripture. Because of this we don't have to pray out of our own personal holiness (if we had any) or compose our own words (if we had any talent for that) but just ride on the flow of the words the saints have used in all ages.

  It is a curious fact that, in ages when life is beautiful, and flourishing, people look to the life to come; but when it is in decay, we cling to the world desperately. It is another paradox that when all attention is given to improving this world, it often gets worse; while those who have done most for the world have often been those whose eyes have been fixed on the world to come. I have recently been reading Agatha Christie's autobiograghy and realised that her childhood was spent in the last years of the Victorian era. She reminds one of so much of good, characteristic of the nineteenth century, which passed away during her lifetime; yet the world in which she was a child was undeniably one whose attention was directed before the kingdon of heaven.

  The age in which Gregory the Great lived was, like ours, one of downfall and decadence. He saw the destruction of the western empire and the ruin of the grandeur that had been Rome. Here, in a sermon preached by the tomb of the Martyrs Nereus, Achilles, Domitilla and Pancras, who died in the high days of the pagan empire, he remarks on this same paradox: "Behold the which we love is fleeting. Those Saints, at whose tomb we stand, regarded with utter scorn the flourishing world. Then, there were long life, lasting health, riches, fruitfulness in offspring, tranquility in long peace: and yet although it was flourishing in itself in already their hearts the world had withered. Behold now the world hath withered in itself, and still it is flourishing in our hearts. Everywhere death, everywhere grief, everywhere desolation, from everywhere we are afflicted, from everywhere we are filled with bitterness: and yet with the blind mind of carnal desire we love its very bitterness, we follow after it though it is fleeting, we cling to it as it collapses."

 And yet in such an unpromising age it was on Gregory's initiative that S. Augustine began the conversion of the English. Who knows what God may not accomplish in our age and in our land  if like Gregory we are faithful in prayer? Through the prayers of our holy fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy upon us. Amen. 


 IT IS WITH THE PROFOUNDEST SORROW
that we learned that the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin had chosen for itself the distinction of having the world's first Anglican Diocesan Bishopess. Until recently there was a rather special closeness between the Anglican and Orthodox Churches which grew during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. S. Michael's , Dunedin, remembers with gratitude the Vicars who helped its people over several decades. This latest decision can only greatly increase the widening gulf that has appeared between the Churches over the last twenty years.

   Although the English Church became separated from its original orthodoxy under the influence of the Roman Church and of the Protestants, it retained some affinity with the Churches of the East in a number of ways, and especially in keeping the outward form of the Holy Mysteries, and in particular taking great care to preserve the succession of Bishops from ancient times, and entrusting the ministration of the sacraments only to those who had received the appropiate Holy Orders from a Bishop.

  To alter the outward form of the Holy Mysteries in a way not expressly authorized by Jesus Christ Himself must introduce unanswerable doubt and uncertainty that the sacrament still enjoys the promise of the Lord who instituted it. To replace the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, or the men to be ordained, by what seems in our human reason to be a rational equivalant, is to set our thoughts above the words of Jesus Christ, who said (in the Gospel in the Missal for the Last Sunday after Pentecost the day this decision was read in the churches): Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

    However, the opening words of that Gospel passage, chosen many centuries ago, must surely be even more to the point:



AT that time: Jesus said unto his disciples: When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place: who so readeth, let him understand: then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains; let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes..... for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets,..in so much (if it where possible) they shall deceive the very elect..


. Some of us were Anglicans, and saw all this afar off, and did not wait to take our flight. It gives no satisfaction at all to be proved right. The early church knew about priestesses, as a practice of paganism, and rejected them (some sects had them) firmly. The "abomination of desolation" refers to a pagan idol that was placed by conquerors on the Altar in the Temple for 3 ½ years. Almost the same thing happened in 70 A.D. at the time that Jerusalem fell. So our text is quite apt. We used it in 1977 in connection with the first priestesses. But while one could perhaps avoid any dealings with a few priestesses, or even an "assistant" bishopess, a diocesan cannot be avoided by anyone in the Diocese. Doubtless many will not wish to avoid, but will rejoice and think they are serving God. But as for us, God give us tears to weep and pray...... Pray for this sinner.
Fr Jack

IN MEMORIAM
+ OF YOUR CHARITY PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF +
KIRSTEN ELIZABETH PRICE
16-1-67 -- 5-4-89
Seen here at her 21st birthday with her sister Nolian and brother-in-law David
MEMORY + ETERNAL
Upon whom, as upon all christian souls, may Jesus have mercy. Amen.




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