Chrysostom - Newsletter 8, All Saintstide 2008

Father John Salter, Chairman of the Society, writes in the Chrysostom All Saintstide edition:

Dear Members and Friends,
Our membership is growing slowly but surely and we are hoping to recruit new members from the seminaries and to serve the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in seminary chapels from time to time to make Latin seminarians aware of the Eastern “lung” of the Catholic Church, and of the richness of the liturgical traditions of the Oriental Rites and in so doing to encourage an interest in the Orthodox Churches as well as the Eastern Catholic Churches in union with the Holy See.

I am happy to report that John Jaques, our treasurer, is now almost fully recovered, but I would ask you to kindly keep his wife, Caroline, in your prayers as she begins to recover her strength after a long convalescence. Also please remember Pamela, Lady Torphichen, a long-standing member of the Society, who is now an invalid, but in the past did a tremendous work for us with the Ukrainian Catholics.

I would draw your attention to the various notices in this issue regarding not only our own meetings, but also those of the Fellowship of St. Alban & Sergius and the Anglican & Eastern Churches` Association, with whom we try to work closely and to support each others` events.

Since the last issue of Chrysostom some of our members attended the dinner arranged by the Anglican & Eastern Churches Association at the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Sava, Lancaster Road, Notting Hill, for the Orthodox observers at the Lambeth Conference. Unfortunately, the observers did not arrive until the following day; however, the local Orthodox rose to the occasion and Bishop Theodoros, the Greek Bishop-Dean of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia, Moscow Road, Bayswater, the Archbishop of the Syrians, Bishop Angaelos of the Copts and the Romanian and Serbian clergy provided a goodly Orthodox presence at a splendid banquet for which the London Serbs are well noted. Some of us also attended the annual general meeting of the Association at St. Magnus-the-Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London Bridge; a church which in the days of Father Fynes-Clinton had strong links with the Orthodox of Russia, Greece, Serbia and Poland; and whose Priest-in-charge today is Father Phillip Warner, a member of our committee and formerly Chaplain to the British Embassy in Belgrade and Apokrisarios to His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of Serbia.

Father Robert Taft, S.J. of the Russicum, or Russian College in Rome, and an internationally renowned liturgiologist gave a lecture on the Divine Liturgy in Constantinople to the Anglican Alcuin Club at St. Matthew's, Westminster, and the Society was represented at this gathering.

The lecture arranged by the Society for Ecumenical Studies and given by Professor Nicholas Lash at Westminster Abbey on “What is a "Church in the proper sense"?” was well attended and, again, members of the Society were present.

The Anglo-Catholic History Society, which includes among its members a considerable number of Roman Catholics had a pilgrimage to two Anglo-Catholic Churches in the Home Counties and called at the former Nashdom Abbey, the home of the Anglican Benedictines before the community moved to Elmore Abbey. The mansion was built by Lutyens for Prince Alexis Dolgourouki and is a rather improbable St.Petersburg palace plonked down amid the beech woods of Buckinghamshire, and named “Our House” or in Russian -“Nashdom”. It is now luxury flats and we were entertained by two of the present residents and were shown the burial ground of the monks, which remains undisturbed, and it was interesting to see the graves of Dom Gregory Dix and Dom Benedict Ley, who worked so closely with Fr. Fynes-Clinton in arranging for the Abbe Paul Couturier to visit England and to further his great work for Christian Unity. After Nashdom we moved on to the Anglican Augustinian nuns of the Society of the Precious Blood at Burnham Abbey, a mediaeval foundation part of which had been restored as a convent of nuns following the same rule as the canonesses who occupied it until 1538. Here there are strong links with the Catholic Reunion Movement on the Continent and prayer is offered and a candle lit regularly for Unity at a statue of Our Lady blessed by Cardinal Mercier of the Malines Conversations of the 1920s. The eleven sisters kindly entertained us to tea after a tour of the abbey.

Patriarch Gregorios III came to the opening of the Lambeth Conference and was here again in September for the Manchester Congress of the Order of St. Lazarus, at which the two factions of the Order were re-united, to the great joy of the Patriarch, under a Spanish Prince of the House of Borbon, His Excellency Don Carlos Gereda de Borbon, Marquis d'Almazan, a kinsman of the Duke of Seville. He was installed in the Anglican Cathedral of St. Mary & St Denys, Manchester, by Patriarch Gregorios. On the Sunday 14th September His Beatitude served the Divine Liturgy at St. Barnabas', Pimlico, for the Melkite Community. Members of the Society were present for this and the procession through the streets of the Holy Cross, and for the luncheon which followed the Liturgy. Patriarch Gregorios is seen here with Fr. Mark Woodruff and Fr. John Salter (right).

Members of the Society were also present at the Catholic League pilgrimage to the Beguinage of the Benedictine Daughters of the Church in Brugge, organized by Father Mark Woodruff, a member of our Committee. The devotional addresses on “Theosis” were given by another member of the Committee – Father Gary Gill, our General Secretary, who is now Catholic Chaplain at St. Thomas's Hospital and other hospitals in that group. Fr. Gill hosted the Divine Liturgy at St. Anselm's, Tooting Bec, at which members of the Society participated and two Latin priests concelebrated and at which we welcomed a Deacon of Ukrainian origin – Father Deacon Michael Bykar.

I hope as many members and friends as possible will support the Christopher Morris Lecture to be given by Dr. Anthony O`Mahony after the 6.15pm Divine Liturgy at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family-in-Exile, Duke Street, Mayfair, on 11th November.

On 11th September the Anglican Nikaean Club entertained on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Munoz, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, our President, and some members of our Committee were present either as hosts or guests.
One or two members of our Society, as I write this, are leaving with the Anglican & Eastern Churches Association on a pilgrimage to the Syrian Orthodox monasteries of Tur Abdin in Eastern Turkey.

Again, one more reminder that the Annual General Meeting of the Society is following the Divine Liturgy on 11th November at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral, preceding Dr O`Mahony`s lecture. I look forward very much to seeing you there and at the reception following the lecture.
I am now preparing to leave London for Northern Cyprus, where I hope to meet some of the Greek communities isolated in the Turkish occupied north.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

John Salter.