Convocation Newsletter
(COVID-19 special edition #13)
June 12, 2020
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A Newsletter for Members and Friends of the Convocation of
Episcopal Churches in Europe
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"Ordinary Time" in a time of crisis...
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For Social Justice
Almighty God, who created us in your own image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Second Sunday after Pentecost:
Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
In Time of of Great Sickness and Mortality....
O most mighty and merciful God, in this time of grievous sickness, we flee unto thee for succor. Deliver us, we beseech thee, from our peril; give strength and skill to all those who minister to the sick; prosper the means made use of for their cure; and grant that, perceiving how frail and uncertain our life is, we may apply our hearts unto that heavenly wisdom which leadeth to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
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(1928 BCP, 45)
The photograph is of a the large banner which now hangs in front of the American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. It is a joint effort by the Convocation and the Cathedral.
Bishop Edington: "Racism is a sin present, in different ways, in every place where humans make community. As followers of Jesus, we are always called to stand with thise who are marginalized and degraded. In our context, that especially means standing with communities of color who have long suffered the injustices of racism. Our church is listening to, and learning from, Black Lives Matter."
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A Message from Chair of the Task Force on Racism and Reconciling the Beloved Community
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A message from the Rev. Stephen McPeek:
Just as the Convocation’s Task Force on European Racism was about to be kicked off, a global pandemic thrust our world into chaos. And just when we hoped we might be able to take a breather from the pandemic, we watched in horror as a black American man was publicly murdered over a $20 bill, setting off a growing global reaction and a call for an end to such injustice and blatant abuse of power. I will never forget the image of a white police officer, kneeling proudly, with his back straight and head held high on the neck of someone whose life drained out of him until he was dead.
The gravity and urgency of our work as a task force grew exponentially in an instant.
Our goal from the start has been to
document the incredible diversity of the members of our Convocation
, to assess the experiences of our people with regards to
inclusion and exclusion in church and in society,
and to increase our
understanding of the roots and contemporary manifestation of the rabid scourge of racism specific to Europe.
The beauty of the diversity of the Kingdom of God that we find in our European congregations and mirrors the coming reality in Revelation of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…” stands as a bulwark against the notion that a society infused by racism is the only option. This riveting image also invites us to embrace the same diversity in the here and now.
We welcome you to join our task force in our efforts to fight against one of the greatest deterrents to a vibrant inclusive church - racial discrimination. Let’s begin by dismantling every vestige of race superiority in our own lives and in our own church. And then let’s join with good people of all backgrounds in opposing and dismantling individual and systemic racism in our society.
The virus of racism infects people of all colors and backgrounds
,
and afflicts people of all colors and backgrounds.
Racism seeks to dominate the “other” through the abuse of power and intimidation from a position of supposed superiority. Our call as followers of Christ, is to love, welcome, lift up, and embrace people of all colors and backgrounds, and all variations of God’s creation as we wait for the full coming of the Kingdom of God.
The Rev. Stephen McPeek
, a native of Hawaii, was ordained to the transitional diaconate in June 2019 at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Honolulu, Hawaii, and began his 2-year curacy at St. Augustine of Canterbury on October 1, 2020. In addition to his work with the congregation, Steve will work in mission development with the mission churches of the Convocation. Steve's ordination to the priesthood is scheduled for July
Steve earned a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in German Language and Literature from the University of Hawaii. He graduated in May 2019 from the Seminary of the Southwest with a Master of Divinity. Before attending the Seminary of the Southwest, Steve was a business owner and worked as operations manager for a campus of the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Steve is married to Rev. Vincent McTighe.. Together they are raising 8-year old Alexis. Steve has five adult children and nine grandchildren from his marriage with Lorna who passed away in 2006. Steve and Lorna served for 15 years with "Jugend mit einer Mission Deutschland (JMEM)" until 1997.
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Bishop Edington's "A Word from the Bishop"
will return next week.
See also the
Bishop's Pastoral Message
from June 5 on YouTube -
here
Read
Bishop Edington's op-ed
from June 10 in
Le Monde
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here
(French and the original English version -
here
)
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“Uptown Down”
Shocked once again. Just like each time before.
Why does this happen? And how many more?
Once again shaken. Right down to my core.
We all need to rise, like we haven’t before.
We can’t let the scars from our past keep us down
We know how to fly. We must wake up or drown!
Must learning our truth come at such a great cost?
We can love our neighbors, before all is lost
©2020 by Kathleen Koch
(Photo courtesy of Unsplash by Steve Carrera)
Kathleen Koch is a parishioner at Emmanuel Church, Geneva, Switzerland
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Academy for Parish Leadership Online
Registration for remaining sessions: June 20, and 27
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APL 2020 is online: June 5, 6, 20, and 27
(Register for all or some of the remaining online sessions)
Registration and Information
here
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"Living Out the Holy: "
Engaged Spirituality for Concerned Christians
This edition of the
Academy for Parish Leadership
will offer a range of speakers and resources on four topics at the center of the Convocation’s work and witne,ss in the world:
- Refugees and Migrant
- Climate and Creation Care
- Racism and Reconciling the Beloved Community
- Youth and Children: The Church of Today
These four priorities were set at the 2019 Convocation Convention. See Bishop Edington's Address
here
Participants in
APL 2020
will have opportunities to explore more deeply a variety of these topics, and to benefit from the perspectives of speakers motivated by their faith commitments to engagement in activism and witness.
We will explore both the spiritual underpinnings of that engagement and concrete, practical steps that we and our parishes can take to live out that commitment in 21st-century Europe.
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APL 2020 is Online
Join us for sessions #3 and #4:
1) Friday, 5 June:
- 19.00-20.15 CET Plenary session. Opening remarks by Bishop Mark Edington, with an overview of the work of the Convocation's Task Forces and the presenters speaking during the weekends.
2) Saturday, 6 June:
- 10:00 Session 1: Refugees and Migrants
- 16:00: Session 2: Climate and Creation Care
3) Saturday, 20 June:
- 10:00 Session 3: Racism and Reconciling the Beloved Community
- 16:00 Session 4: Youth and Children
4) Saturday, 27 June:
- 10:00 Final plenary, reporting back, next steps, worship.
Register for some or all of the six online sessions -
here
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The online sessions will include speakers from within and outside of the Convocation
who are motivated by their faith commitments to engagement in activism and witness. We will have online breakout sessions to discuss and explore both the spiritual underpinnings and look at concrete, practical steps so that we can live out our commitment in 21st-Century Europe.
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Racism and Reconciling the Beloved Community - Saturday, 20 June, at 10:00 a.m.
The session will include sacred stories from task force members on their experiences with inclusion and exclusion, an introduction to the Convocation wide survey on diversity and inclusion.
Our presenter,
the Rev. Edwin Johnson,
will speak on Building Beloved Community, the Episcopal Church’s framework for reconciliation and healing the wounds caused by racism. This will lay the ground work for delving deeper into the roots and modern day manifestation of racial discrimination in Europe. Johnson is
rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Dorchester, Mass, from Costa-Rica and Montserrat heritage who is providing some guidance on direction for the task force.
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Youth and Children in our church today - the future or the present?
Do they belong? How can we engage them? How can we learn with and from them?
Saturday, 20 June at 4:00 p.m.
Hear from speaker
Bronwyn Clark Skov,
Officer for Youth Ministry, The Episcopal Church.
Bronwyn will share about the impact of child/youth hood on one’s participation in church as an adult, ideas for a Christian formation plan strategy,
as well as examples of models that are doing well across the Episcopal Church.
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Refugee Day: All Saints Waterloo, June 17
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All Saints Waterloo is hosting a
European-wide virtual prayer service on Wednesday 17 June
during the week of World Refugee Day.
This year, the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe is organising a Task Force on Migrants and Refugees to create a community of practice across Europe. This service will engage spiritually and prayerfully with the four core questions of the Task Force; what does it mean for us, as Christians and church communities, to offer:
Charity
to migrants and refugees in need;
Witness
to their stories and their faith;
Outreach
to newcomers to our local areas and to our faith and;
Welcome
newcomers to our churches to become full members and leaders.
These questions remind us that our churches must think about how we can best offer everyone with the information and hospitality that they seek from our communities.
As Wondrous Wednesdays are highly participatory, we encourage you not only to join, but also to participate by contributing prayers, testimonies, favourite poems or songs and hymns focussing on these points (please send us your suggestions by midnight Sunday June 14 to
thomas.huddleston@gmail.com
).
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Ordinations and Clergy Transitions
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Ordinations on Saturday, June 27, at 1:00 p.m.
Our transitional Deacons, the
Rev. Stéphanie Burette
and the
Rev. Jean Dumond Chavanne
will, God willing, be ordained Priests on Saturday, June 27, at 1:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris.
The service will be broadcast live over Facebook
. A very limited number of family and essential personnel will be present in person for the ordination in the cathedral. These precautions are of course due to social distancing and health requirements resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The Rev. Stéphanie Burette
Sponsoring Parish:
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris
Dr. Stéphanie Burette completed her Master of Divinity degree at Yale Divinity School in conjunction with Berkeley Divinity School’s Diploma of Anglican Studies and ministry formation program. She completed master’s and doctoral degrees from the Sorbonne Nouvelle, and was a school teacher in France before attending to Yale.
Stéphanie received an appointment as the Porter Fellow at St George’s College in Jerusalem for the 2019-20 academic year. She has worked with pilgrimage groups and others, as well as contributing to the life of St George’s Cathedral and to the Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB) organization. She returns to Europe in mid-June.
Stéphanie has accepted a call as curate at St. Thomas' Church in Hanover NH, USA, which is adjacent to Dartmouth University.
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The Rev. Jean Dumond Chavanne
Sponsoring Parish:
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris
Jean Dumond Chavanne came to us as an ordinand of the Diocese of Haiti. He was, however, later accepted into our ordination process, being sponsored by the Cathedral in Paris.
During his time in France, he has completed both a master in pedagogy as well as theological studies at the Institut catholique and the Institut protestant de Paris. In the summer, the European Institute of Christian Studies (EICS) administered the General Ordination Exam (in French) and has certified his formation.
Dumond and wife Rolande are active parishioners at the cathedral. Dumond and his family hope one day to return to their homeland and serve the Church as priest and teacher. After his ordination, Dumond will be working in French-speaking Episcopal ministry in France and Belgium.
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The Rev. Dr. Edda Wolff
has been appointed as Interim Canon at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity for the months of June to August 2020. Edda writes: “I am an ordained priest of the Convocation. I grew up in Stuttgart and studied Theology and Philosophy in Tübingen, Rome and Freiburg. After finishing my degree in 2012, I took a pilgrimage, walking for five months from Germany to Jerusalem. Upon arriving in Jerusalem, I volunteered for five months at Dormition Abbey, a German Benedictine Monastery. In 2013, I started work as a chaplain at the University of Reading and coordinated the interdenominational University Student Community. In 2015, I began ministerial training in Cambridge, UK, and a PhD in Liturgical Studies at Durham University, which I completed in 2018. I worked as an interim rector at the Church of Christ the King in Frankfurt from August 2018 till January 2020. I enjoy reading, languages and horseback riding. My preferred pronouns are "they/them". I am happy to talk about this with anyone interested in trans-/nonbinary inclusion in the church. I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible during my time in Paris!” Edda is a German national, is fluent in English, and has facility in French, Italian, and other languages.
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The Rev. Allan Sandlin
will
celebrate his last Sunday
at the Church of the Ascension in Munich on July 19. He will return to the US due to family reasons.
Allan joined the people of the Church of the Ascension in Munich as Interim Rector in April 2019. In January 2020 he was appointed as Priest in Charge. A native of the Southwestern United States, he has served as a priest in Georgia, Maine and from 1999-2007 was Rector of the Anglican-Episcopal Church of Christ the King in Frankfurt. For the past few years he has focused on interim ministry and enjoys connecting with congregations as they move through the challenges and joys of transition. He also teaches liturgy in the Anglican Studies program at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.
Allan is married to Gretchen Nagy, an Atlanta/Cologne attorney. Their son, Thomas, and his wife, Alex, live and work in Amsterdam and daughter, Lizzy, is an urban planner in Atlanta. Allan will continue to assist the Convocation in the area of transition ministry.
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Online Worship in the Convocation
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Online Worship Opportunities for Sundays and Weekdays
With most of our church buildings closed to public worship, many of our parishes and missions have moved their Sunday and weekday Worship online. Consider taking part in worship with your sisters and brothers in Christ across Europe.
Times of
in-person worship
are also indicated.
All times are (Central European Summer Time (CEST).
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The Anglican-Episcopal Church of Christ the King
Frankfurt, Germany
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Worship on Sundays and during the week:
Sundays
- Emmanuel Church, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
- In-person worship Sunday 8:30: Morning Prayer
- In-person worship Sunday 10:30: Morning Prayer (with instrumental music and cantors singing) - sign-up required
Mondays
Tuesdays
Wednesdays
- American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris, FRANCE **
- 9:00 a.m. Morning prayer live-streamed - here
- Compline available each day on YouTube - here
- Emmanuel Church, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
- 12:30 p.m. Noonday Prayer - Link
- Resurrection, Orvieto, ITALY
- Morning Prayer at 9:30 a.m. (in Spanish)
- St. Augustine, Wiesbaden, GERMANY
- Wednesdays at 11:00 a.m. "Word and Worship" - link
- St. James, Florence, ITALY
- Evening Prayer at 6:00 p.m.
- St. Paul's Within the Walls, Rome, ITALY
- Morning Prayer, Rite II at 12:00 Noon
Thursdays
- All Saints' Waterloo, BELGIUM (or on Facebook)
- 21h00 Compline
- American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris, FRANCE **
- 9:00 a.m. Morning prayer live-streamed - here
- Compline available each day on YouTube - here
- Ascension, Munich, GERMANY -
- 8:00 p.m. Compline - link
- Christ the King, Frankfurt, GERMANY - link
- 19:00 Compline
- Resurrection, Orvieto, ITALY
- Morning Prayer at 9:30 a.m. (in Spanish)
- Bible Study at 17:00 (in Spanish)
- St. Paul's Within the Walls, Rome, ITALY
- Contemplative Prayer at 12:00 Noon
Fridays
Saturdays
**
All live-streamed services are posted to the Cathedral
YouTube
and
Facebook
and may be accessed at any time.
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Upcoming Convocation Events
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- June 27, 1:00 p.m. Ordination of Priests - Cathedral
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- October 15-18: TEC-ELKB dialogue - Augsburg, Germany
- October 22-25: 2020 Convocation Convention in Nice, France
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The Convocation Youth were invited to submit creative ideas for a project called “
Pentecost Project 2020
”, telling the story of
Pentecost
.
What a wonderful result:
a video featuring youth from throughout the Europe speaking the good news in the languages of our Convocation!
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A useful resources from the Youth Commission:
FAITH AT HOME - RESOURCES FOR ALL AGES
-
DOWNLOAD
For more information on youth events and registration, please visit the Youth Ministry webpage
HERE
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Convocation COVID-19 Webpage
Information in one place
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Convocation COVID-19 Response
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Please visit our
webpage
dedicated to our COVID-19 response, as well as other resources.
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Congregational Plans for reopening churches
- see the Bishop and Council of Advice directives
on
Regathering the Church Prayerfully and Intentionally
here
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About five years ago, Canon Jere Skipper began the work of expanding the Episcopal Asset Map to include our congregations and ministries in Europe to the church-wide resource.
All of the parishes, established missions, and other ministries are on the Asset Map. Much more information needs to be added. Please consider updating the Episcopal Asset Map entry for your church or ministry. If you need help contact the
archdeacon
.
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Convocation Communications Committee
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Trinité Magazine
Spring 2020 issue
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The Convocation Communications Committee (CCC) coordinates the communications of the Convocation. Special emphasis is given to Social Media, and close coordination with the parishes and missions of the Convocation. Existing modes of communication such as newsletters and the website are getting a facelift.
Members are: Thomas Girty (Paris), chair; Felicity Handford, Marc Smets-Tolley (both Waterloo), Walter Baer (Paris), Audrey Shankles (Wiesbaden), Helena Mbele-Mbong (Geneva), Maleah Rios (Rome) and Ellen Hampton (Paris), ex-officio. Others are being added.
The Convocation is now also featured with four pages in the cathedral's semi-annual publication
Trinité
, covering Convocation events.
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Did you miss Church?
Check out an on-line sermon:
See Bishop Edington's Sermon for Easter 2
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here
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Other pulpits in the Convocation:
Check other congregational webpages
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A la radio : le Magazine Anglican
Le « Magazine Anglican », animé par Laurence Moachon, paroissienne de la Cathédrale de la Sainte Trinité à Paris.
À propos du Magazine Anglican :
Depuis septembre 2012, Laurence Moachon présente le 4e samedi du mois, le Magazine Anglican. Avec l’objectif de faire mieux connaître la tradition anglicane au public français, elle traite de sujets d’actualité culturelle, historique, liturgique ou ecclésiologique dans la Convocation et la Communion Anglicane.
ÉCOUTEZ OU TÉLÉCHARGEZ LE MAGAZINE ANGLICAN sur :
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Regarding Allegations of Clergy Sexual Abuse
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Important information on the lifting of the Statute of Limitation regarding clergy sexual abuse...
Let it be known that for three years in the Episcopal Church there is no statute of limitation on clergy sexual abuse. Every diocese has a confidential way to make a report. In Europe here is ours:
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"Go forth for God; go to the world in peace; be of good courage, armed with heavenly grace, in God's good Spirit daily to increase, till in his kingdom we behold his face."
Hymn 347 - Holy Eucharist; Music: Litton
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The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe | 23 avenue George V, 75008 Paris, France
+33 (0) 1 53 23 84 06 | office@tec-europe.orgl | www.tec-europe.org
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