The Communion - Part 2

From the beginning of my assignment to be serve as a missionary in Rome, I have had three primary tasks in serving here - (1) serve refugees at the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, (2) participate in every part of parish ministry at St. Paul's Within the Walls, and (3) engage in inter-Anglican, ecumenical, and interfaith dialogue, particularly at the Anglican Centre in Rome. Particularly throughout January 2016, amidst the critical Primates' Meeting in Canterbury and the annual celebration of Christian Unity Week, the third of my mission tasks has garnered significant attention. For this reason, my blog posts in the month of January will particularly focus on building relationships across various lines of faith and culture. 

In my last post, I wrote about the Primates' Meeting in Canterbury this week and the enormous need to pray for these leaders in their work and discussions this week. Remarkably, this essential moment in the life of our worldwide Church has affected not only the high-level reaches of powerful archbishops, but even down to everyday parishes all around the world. No less, even this lowly non-ordained missionary intern has seen the footprints of the Primate's Meeting on the ground in my very own parish community.

Meeting the Primates
Over the past roughly eighteen months, I have had the extraordinary pleasure of holding conversation with several current and former primates about the state of our Communion. Having spoken with them variously about the state of our Anglican world, my prayers for them have been not just general, but also deeply personal.

Primates Nathaniel Uematsu (Japan), Suheil Dawanin (Jerusalem & Middle East) and fmr. Primate Katharine Jefferts Schori (TEC USA)

Meeting with Primates Michael Curry (TEC USA), Daniel Torto (West Africa) and fmr. Primate David Moxon (New Zealand)

(Incidentally, Archbishop Welby visited the JNRC two years ago, albeit before I arrived in Rome)

GOE's & the Crosier

Last week I wrote something about the sources and solutions for the recent conflicts within our worldwide Anglican Family (although I can't share it with you just yet). As some of you know, last week I along with dozens of Episcopalians in ordination processes in the Episcopal Church undertook the General ordination exams - no less than 21 hours of testing over three days and six 1000-word essays on various aspects of church ministry. Among those essays, we were required by one prompt to discuss periods of conflict in the Anglican Communion (including the recent conflicts over homosexuality) and in another to explain how we would handle a same-sex couple seeking to be married in our parish. Surely the administrators wanted us to keep abreast of the most up-to-date issues in the Anglican world!

As it happened, I was fortunate to take this exam online while sitting at the Anglican Centre in Rome, with the help of my dear friend Fr. Marcus Walker, the Centre's associate director.  (The Centre is essentially the embassy of the Anglican Communion to the Vatican as well as a place of theological research and inter-denominational conversation). The day after my testing ended, Marcus delightfully flew off to England, carrying the Crozier of St. Gregory (the bishop's staff given by Pope Gregory to St. Anselm of Canterbury, the ancient bishop from whom all Anglican bishops trace their ordination, in 597AD. We talked over the course of the week about the upcoming meeting and the exciting honor to cary this beautiful relic. The crozier sat in the room with the bishops during their meeting to remind them of their common heritage and unity.

the Rev's Marcus Walker & Robert McCulloch dutifully escort the Crosier of St. Gregory to Canterbury!

Once my exams were finished,  I was blessed to attend the weekly Eucharist service held at the Anglican Centre in Rome. Fr. Marcus preached a brilliant sermon about the need to pray for our primates and heal divisions in our Communion (I hope you will all take a moment to read it), followed by the moving responsoral prayer that I shared in the previous post. I hope you will continue to pray with me for all of the Primates and for every part of our Anglican Communion.

Fr. Marcus celebrating the Eucharist after preaching a brilliant sermon on Anglican unity.

On Wednesday evening (January 14th), I walked back home through the pouring rain from a restaurant where I had just spent the evening talking about Scripture and the Anglican Communion with Fr. Marcus, Fr. Austin (my supervisor & rector of St. Paul's), my good seminarian friend Tommie Watkins, and one of our parishioners. Suddenly my phone was abuzz with messages from other friends and relatives announcing that a statement had been released from the meeting in Canterbury. With a quick prayer, I clicked on the link and read through it's contents...

(In my next post, I'll reflect on the statement of the Primates and what it means for our Communion. Stay tuned!)