Bones of St Paul found

The Daily Telegraph has just carried a story by Nick Squires that fragments of bone which have been kept in an underground sarcophagus at the church of St Paul’s-Outside-the-Walls in Rome for nearly 2,000 years have been identified as the remains of St Paul.

Saint Paul was said to have been buried with Saint Peter in a catacomb on the Via Appia, one of the Roman roads which leads out of the city, before being moved to a basilica which was erected in his honour.

In a sense it’s not news, because the sarcophagus was under a slab of marble beneath the high altar, with the inscription  Paulo Apostolo Mart – quite a giveaway.

Pope Benedict announced that the investigation found

traces of a precious linen cloth, purple in colour, laminated with pure gold, and a blue coloured textile with filaments of linen. It also revealed the presence of grains of red incense and traces of protein and limestone. There were also tiny fragments of bone, which, when subjected to Carbon 14 tests by experts, turned out to belong to someone who lived in the first or second century.

It’s not total proof that the body was definitely that of the Saint, but there must be a strong presumption that that is the case, and I hope the story does something to remind us all that the New Testament is not a fairytale but includes the record of real people like us who met Jesus and followed him – to the end.

Filed under: Christianity, History, Rome, St Paul

Church Unplugged

Dave Male, our Fresh Expressions Adviser, has a new Blog called Church Unplugged.

Ironically in his latest post he says that he has just read a short article by Dan Kimball on the danger of blogging about mission rather than doing it.

The blog takes its title from Dave’s book Church Unplugged which

gives an essential framework for creating church in the twenty-first century. It is a call to think and work outside the box of recent church in bold and risk-taking ways. Through telling the story of one of the first ‘fresh expressions of church’ in England, the Net in Huddersfield, this book examines the key issues related to a future of mission, evangelism, church and community. It is an honest account which examines not just the ups but also the downs and clearly shows what the church learnt about community and how being community is never easy. ‘Practical, personal and honest. The story of The Net is told to encourage others to have a go. If you’re thinking about it, read this book.’

James Lawrence , Director, CPAS Arrow Leadership Programme

Filed under: Resources, Technology, blogging

Cambridge Festival of Ideas

This year’s Festival of Ideas in Cambridge will run from 21 October – 1 November.

Over 150 free events, including workshops, debates and taster sessions, celebrate the arts, humanities and social science. It’s a great carnival of the mind on our doorstep. The organisers would like to include more events to do with faith and the faiths, but there are two good ones this year anyway:

Questions of Truth

Saturday 24 October  1.30pm – 3pm
Mill Lane Lecture Room 3, Mill Lane

Described as "the book Richard Dawkins doesn’t want you to read" and by a Nobel Prizewinner as "a refreshing contrast", Questions of Truth sees John Polkinghorne FRS and Nicholas Beale offer responses to questions about God, science and belief. Come with your own questions and comments to a stimulating interactive session chaired by Professor Simon Conway-Morris
Sponsored by the Faraday Institute

Do we need a new morality for the 21st century?

Thursday 29 October  5.30pm – 6.30pm
Mill Lane Lecture Room 3, Mill Lane

Is our moral compass changing as we face new challenges? As the world becomes more globalised do different cultures have to embrace different moral codes or are there fundamental moral values that we share? Dame Julia Neuberger, Sheikh Michael Mumisa, Professor David Ford and Professor Simon Blackburn will lead the discussion

Filed under: Events, science, Cambridge

Wiggenhall St Mary

 

Jean and I enjoyed some more church crawling on Sunday afternoon, this time in the north of the diocese. Wiggenhall St Mary is now in the care of the Council for the Care of Churches. We didn’t disturb the keyholder this time, so must go back to see the superb collection of pew ends and the polychrome chancel screen, but you can enjoy them on line here.

For now, it made a pleasant place to sit on a very hot day – which the chap on the right seemed not to be enjoying at all. More toothache?

Filed under: History, Travel, Visiting churches

Darwin back in Cambridge

From 5-10 July 2009, in its 800th anniversary year, the University of Cambridge will host a major international Festival to mark 200 years since Charles Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. Combining science, arts and the humanities, over 100 outstanding thinkers, authors, artists and performers will debate and celebrate the enduring influence of Darwin’s ideas. The Festival is open to all. Click here for the Full programme and here for Registration and Booking (NB you’ll find tickets are needed for many talks at eg £20 for a morning or afternoon, and are selling fast even at those prices).

There’s a lot more to the Festival than the Science and Religion debate, but for those interested in that look out especally for:

Monday July 6th 2 – 3.30 and 4 – 5.30
Afternoon Focus session: Theology in a Darwinian Context
Chair: Sarah Coakley
Speakers:Philip Clayton; Denis Alexander; Fraser Watts; Wentzel van Huyssteen

Tuesday July 7th 2 – 3:30 and 4 – 5:30pm
Afternoon Focus Session: The Evolution of Religion
Chair: Fraser Watts
Speakers:
Pascal Boyer; David Sloan Wilson; Michael Ruse; Harvey Whitehouse (University of Oxford, UK)

Tuesday 7th July 5:45 – 7:45pm
Fringe Film: BBC Documentary: Did Darwin Kill God?
introduced by the Presenter, Conor Cunningham, who will also answer
questions afterwards.This event is free of charge.

Wednesday July 8th 9.30-12.30
Morning Talks and Debates: Human Nature and Belief
With Sarah Coakley; Daniel Dennett; John Hedley Brooke; Philip Kitcher; Robert J. Richards; Steve Jones (London, UK)

 

Don’t miss as well The Darwin Exhibition, The Fitzwilliam Museum
16 June – 4 October 2009
Darwin’s profound influence on nineteenth-century art is revealed in this ground-breaking major exhibition, which brings together a vast range of artworks and historic scientific material from around the world – many on public display in the UK for the first time. 7 July: late-night opening until 9pm.

Filed under: Events, Cambridge, Darwin, Science and Religion

Church Housing in Jerusalem threatened

Yusef Daher, Executive Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre, has  sent round an emergency email (dated 23rd June) saying that demolition orders have been placed against “at least four Christian families living inside the old city of Jerusalem where local Churches accommodate more than 500 homes for Palestinian families. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Catholic Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land own most of these homes. Churches are already facing difficulty in attaining renovation permits and expansion is almost impossible. One of the Church lawyers confirms that even the Churches already have court cases with the municipality of Jerusalem on similar issues. One of the Church leaders bitterly criticize the different treatment given to Jewish settlers inside the city wall where they are granted permits for expanding and renovating the properties under their control.
In these four cases in particular, the families were addressed individually by the Israeli municipal authorities and court cases are underway. One of the defendants, Sami Wakileh, recalls the Judge telling him, “It is a waste of your precious time. Do not dream of receiving any permit…” This means that the existing home will be demolished sooner or later. Sami’s house is actually an old building that he leased from the Church and spent over a hundred thousand dollars to fix and renovate. In another case,  Bassam Ayyash, who rents a 50 square meter apartment from the Greek Orthodox Church inside the Patriarchate’s convent has also received a demolition order claiming that this 50 square meter apartment is an expansion to his home! Bassam is puzzled with the persistence of the authorities in not agreeing to come and investigate the matter when he confirms, “My only home is the 50 square meter apartment."
Last month, ten Christian families in Beit Hanina, a suburb area of North East Jerusalem, received demolition orders for their six year old apartments in the Al-Sunbula building. Half of the building was licensed originally while permits to formulate the rest were not given. Now all the inhabitants face the same fate if the municipality carries out its threats.
Housing inside Jerusalem has been a burden for all Palestinian families. With an extremely difficult process and impossible permit system coupled with the high cost of living in Jerusalem, building or having one’s own apartment is becoming a dream. The Christian community struggles with the family re-unification system and residency rights restrictions imposed by the Israeli Authorities. When one Jerusalemite cannot live together with his or her spouse who is a West Banker under one roof inside Jerusalem, the ultimate effect is that less and less couples decide to get married. Father Ibrahim Faltas, the Roman Catholic Parish priest of Jerusalem, declared last week that the number of Catholic marriages this year is almost half of what they experienced during the previous years. New Jerusalem Christian families are more and more forced to leave their home city either to the neighboring West Bank or emigrate if they have the chance.

Filed under: Current affairs, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine

Up with Upwell!

 

I was the guest preacher yesterday at St Peter and St Paul, Upwell. They mark their patronal festival (Petertide of course) with a Flower Festival, and the church was prettily decorated throughout with arrangements on a theme of ‘Celebrations’. I particularly like the way in which many of the arrangements were the work of local people and groups using flowers from their gardens – more friendly (and cost-effective!) than displays by professionals using florists’ stock.

I thought the congregation made an attractive arrangement as well, and a carnation from one of the displays gave the clue for a talk on how we needed the roots in God that the church can offer if we are to go on being blooming beautiful in the world around us.

I tried out a few other analogies as well, but should perhaps have added one about bell-ringing. You can have a marvellous, big bell at the top of the tower; a wondrously long rope running down it; but unless there is someone in church working hard at the bottom end – nothing happens.

The analogy would have been a good one if only because the church at Upwell is often presented as one of the models Dorothy Sayers used in her detective story about bell-ringing, The Nine Tailors. Her father was a clergyman whose last parish was at Christchurch just down the road- and orginally I think in Upwell parish, the Christchurch men occupying one of its galleries (and the Nordelphers the other – brought in barge by the lord of the manor up the picturesque creek that runs though the village).

Filed under: Sermons and Talks, Travel, Diocese of Ely

St Peter and St Paul

Mosaic at Ravenna of SS Peter and Paul

Peter and Paul have been remembered jointly on this day since the very early days of the Church, it being regarded as the anniversary of their martyrdom in Rome in about the year 64.

The saints are rather famous! So two lesser-known facts about the feast:

1. This is the day of the Roman Catholic liturgical year on which those newly-created metropolitan archbishops who have been named in the previous church year receive the primary symbol of their office, the pallium, from the pope.
2. In recent decades, this feast along with Saint Andrew has been of importance to the modern ecumenical movement as an occasion on which the pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople have officiated at services designed to bring their two churches closer to intercommunion. This was especially the case during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, as reflected in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint.

Collect
Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints

Fresh Expressions and the Sacraments Day Conference

Saturday 12th September, 10am-4pm, Milton Church Hall,with Maggi Dawn. (cost £5). Maggi is chaplain at Robinson College, a writer, singer, blogger and founder member of Holy Joe’s in London too.

This is the Ely Diocese’s annual Fresh Expressions day conference (which is open to all denominations etc). We will be looking at the vital area of the role of the sacraments in developing fresh expressions of church.

We will look at issues like what are the sacraments for, what can you do and how might you use communion creatively. There will be talks, workshops and seminars.

For more information or to book contact Dave Male.

Filed under: Events, Resources, Diocese of Ely, Fresh Expressions

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril, whom we remember today, was one of the great Eastern Church Fathers. He was born in Alexandria and succeeded his uncle as Patriarch in 412. His great work was the defence of Jesus Christ as a unique and single Person within the Trinity against the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, who taught that the Christ jhad two persons, the Jesus who was made flesh and also one who was Divine. The Council of Ephesus gave its full support to Cyril, making the word Theotokos the touchstone of Christian orthodoxy, because by calling Mary the God-bearer it made the human Jesus clearly God.

We worship One Lord Jesus Christ, for the Word born of God and the man born completely of the holy virgin, come together in unity. We do not exclude him from the terms of the divinity because of the flesh, nor do we reduce him to the level of a simple man because of his likeness to us. This is how you should think that the Word born of God willingly underwent his voluntary self-emptying; and this is how he humbled himself, assuming the form of a slave, even though in his own nature he is free.

Letter to the Monks 17

Filed under: Celebrating the Saints, doctrine, Trinity