We continue through Holy Week and in our daily liturgies and prayers recall some of the events in the last week of Jesus’ life on earth. As the action slows down towards the end of the week we are invited to consider what it was like for Jesus’ closest friends, his mother and the wider group of ‘disciples’. For his closest friends – Jesus was acting very oddly and saying odd things about dying, and about his body being like the bread of their shared meal. The men in the group would all betray him – that is deny that they even knew him by running away in their fear. Judas didn’t live long enough to hear Jesus’ prayer for God’s forgiveness for all who ‘didn’t know what they were doing’. Jesus’ friends felt let down. Jesus felt let down. They were all headed towards a calamity they could only imagine. And it just wasn’t meant to be like that. We don’t need to look very far in order to see other calamities in our world which just shouldn’t be as they are. And like in that first Holy Week it feels as if there is very little we can actually do to make things any better. We are flying the Ukrainian flag at our Cathedral. We have a specific Prayer Station for the people of Ukraine and we pray for them at all daily and Sunday services. And aside from donating to the Disasters Emergency Committee there is nothing that we can do which will directly relieve the suffering in that land. However, it is from the people of Ukraine that WE gain great hope. They are people full of faith, faith in God, faith in the inherent goodness of humanity, faith in the strength of their communities, and yes, faith in their national identity. All of these certainties are being tested, just as they were tested for all who we remember in our Holy Week readings, music and prayers. What did it mean, and what does it mean, to be a disciple of Jesus? What did it mean, and what does it mean, to claim that the power of God is made manifest in weakness and vulnerability? And what did it mean, and what does it mean, for death to be transformed through the love of Jesus? Easter will happen, but before that comes Good Friday. As we continue through this Holy Week may we seek to encounter the vulnerability of Jesus as he prepared to die for the world and may we be renewed to celebrate the defeat and transformation of death. And may that give to us and to all people great hope. Dean Dianna
Before Russia's invasion, Kyiv had a small but thriving community of Anglicans. Today, members of Christ Church, which used to meet in the German Lutheran church Kyiv's centre (see photo), come together to pray for peace online."We try to keep in touch via [the messaging apps] Viber or WhatsApp," explained church warden Christina Laschenko-Stafiychuk."We also try to join Zoom vigil services on Wednesday evenings held by the Diocese in Europe during Lent to pray for Ukraine."Since the Russian invasion which began on February 24th, the once vibrant community has been scattered across Europe. Christina said: "My daughter and I left Kyiv on March 4th. We left on an evacuation train going towards Lviv."We then took a train to Chełm in Poland, then on to Warsaw, and finally to Zurich."The pair are safe, but her husband has remained in Ukraine."My husband is officially a volunteer in the Second Reserves, but due to the sufficient number of volunteers he was not summoned yet," she explained.As Russian forces apparently pull back from around Kyiv, congregants are said to be safer. Yet, Christina said: "The whole territory of Ukraine is within the range of missiles, and shelling of critical infrastructure continue."It has been confirmed that the German Lutheran church remains untouched by war damage. Anglicans across the world have come together in prayer and are raising funds for both Ukrainians fleeing war and those staying behind. Church of England guidance has been published for parishes within England to support refugees in communities and last week the Church of England joined other churches in Britain and Ireland for a Day of Prayer for peace in Ukraine. Christina said: "Anglicans are doing so much. They pray - I have been told about continuous prayer for Ukraine and its people. "And special funds for refugees have been set up, and many Anglican friends across Europe are opening their homes to Ukrainians."The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have condemned the Russian invasion. In a joint statement they said: “The horrific and unprovoked attack on Ukraine is an act of great evil. "Placing our trust in Jesus Christ, the author of peace, we pray for an urgent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian forces."Christina has encouraged Anglicans to continue to pray for peace in Ukraine this Easter.
Plans to build a £5m centre to pass on knowledge of ancient crafts at York Minster have been submitted.The Centre of Excellence for Heritage Craft Skills would teach methods, including stonemasonry, which are vital to the cathedral's preservation.An application to City of York council said current facilities available to the minster's skilled workforce were "constrained and inadequate".The scheme would sustain the cathedral for future generations, officials said.Alex McCallion, director of works and precinct at York Minster, said a team of expert heritage craftspeople was needed to maintain the cathedral.He said the existing stoneyard had the complete range of knowledge needed, but that this was "set against a backdrop of declining craft skills".Mr McCallion said setting up two new teaching sites known as The Heritage Quad and The Works and Technology Hub would allow the craft of stonemasonry to continue.Apprentices and students would also learn modern techniques and processes alongside the ancient craft skills, which would "secure the Minster for future generations to enjoy", he said.The new plans form part of the biggest programme of planned works at York Minster in 150 years, according to the Revd Canon Michael Smith, Acting Dean of York.A spokesperson said if the scheme got the go-ahead it would be finished in early 2024.
Along with Benedict Cumberbatch, more than 100,000 British households have volunteered to take in refugees from Ukraine. The very embodiment of Jesus’s exhortation to love our neighbour, surely?Many, of all faiths and none, will have seriously considered what it would be like to have a traumatised stranger or family of strangers in their peaceful home. What would be the cost, the danger, the emotional and physical price to pay? What would it be like to help someone at the apex of their need and to respond in a practical way to the global ache for Ukraine?Perhaps not quite as you imagine. Having taken in a refugee myself, I found the experience to be completely unexpected. In 2019, I took in a woman fleeing from religious persecution in Iran to live with me and my family. She was traumatised, she had left her entire life behind and I had never met nor heard of her until the day I took her home.Waking on a hot August morning in London in 2019 I had no sense of the change about to sweep through our lives. It was another Sunday, I was a vicar’s wife and despite being tired, I had to find a way to be present for our congregation. Our church in west London was a myriad of different cultures and interesting life stories, but I was drained, wrestling depression and felt like I had nothing left to give to anyone.When I met Maryam that morning, I listened to her story as I had done on many other occasions with desperate people. I nodded. I smiled sympathetically. I prayed. However, something in me stirred, a prompt from my heart’s depths, the same prompt many others have been feeling recently. I have a spare room.When I look back now I could not have understood the significance of what I was about to do. The potential for danger, the opportunities for growth, for bravery and, ultimately, for love.I took her home, both of us wide-eyed and apprehensive. A week earlier Maryam had been folded into a luggage compartment of a coach and smuggled across her country’s border; that same week, I had been in Cornwall on holiday. A bolt of fear woke me at 2.30am. What have we just done? Are my kids okay? I crept out of bed and checked on my son and daughter. They were fast asleep. Silence. The quiet crying I had heard from the spare room earlier that night had stopped. Back in bed I murmured prayers until I fell into an uneasy sleep.Over the next few days we collected pieces of Maryam’s story and, like shards of broken china, we pieced them together to see her fractured picture of terror and desperation. As Christians in the UK we have experienced relatively little persecution for our faith, and we felt honoured to open our home to someone who had suffered so much for theirs.Over the next few months, we discovered the complexities of the UK asylum seeker process, more difficult to navigate than I could ever have imagined. Despite our constant help with forms and phone calls, papers and procedure, it felt like Maryam was losing all the time. But, as I joined her in her fight for refugee status, she joined me in my fight against depression. As we each went through a dark night of the soul, we forged a sisterhood, we laughed and cried, we shared and prayed together, and in the darkness we discovered a new level of bravery to face the world.
