wfn.org | Canterbury Eucharist marks opening of 13th Lambeth Conference

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

ACNS LC019 - 19 July 1998

Canterbury Eucharist marks opening of 13th Lambeth Conference

by Nan Cobbey

Lambeth Conference Communications

	With gold and blue banners snapping in the breeze, school
children waving and the Canterbury Cathedral's 14-bell peal
tolling, the 13th Lambeth Conference officially opened Sunday
morning as 750 cassock-clad bishops processed into the cathedral
to celebrate the first Eucharist of their three-week gathering.

	 The bishops, representing 37 provinces of the international
Anglican Communion, entered through the historic western portal
and continued up the 215-foot nave to the music of organ and the
Cathedral choir of men and boys. Forty minutes elapsed before the
double line of magenta-cassocked bishops, accompanied by
representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council, and several
dozen ecumenical and other guests, found their seats in the
900-year-old mother church of the Anglican Communion. They were
all in place, however, by the time His Royal Highness Charles,
the Prince of Wales, arrived and was escorted with a trumpet
fanfare to his seat in the quire.

	In an echo of the church's recent past, two former Archbishops
of Canterbury, Lord Coggan and Lord Runcie, joined the
procession. For the first time since the conference began in
1867, 11 women bishops were part of the procession, and African
bishops, numbering 224, surpassed every other continental group.
North America sent 180 bishops to the conference, which is held
only once every 10 years, while the United Kingdom sent about
140. 

Colorful service draws on varied cultures

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey greeted his international
congregation with the Swahili words "Bwana akae nanyi" (The Lord
be with you) and heard in reply "Akae nawe pia" (And also with
you) from a responsive chorus of more than 2,000 voices. No seat
in the Cathedral was vacant. Some of the faithful stood,
listening, from the Cathedral precincts or waited with the
curious in the narrow, cobbled streets of this ancient walled
city near England's southeast coast.

	The tone set by the Swahili greeting continued throughout what
became an increasingly exuberant celebration of the communion's
burgeoning and varied family of 73 million members spread over
more than 160 nations. Trumpets, drums, dance, bells and a
cacophony of languages in prayer and praise expressed a rare
cultural richness. Flowing pink, orange and blue silk saris,
stiff-peaked African cotton headwraps, straw hats frothy with
feathers, even one shining emerald cope made for Archbishop
Andrew Mya Han of the Church of the Province of Myanmar by
members of his Mothers' Union, filled the cathedral with color. 

	Panamanian liturgical dancers from the London-based Victor Hugo
Dance Troupe swept through the quire and into the nave with a
flipping of blue, green, peach and purple ribbons, and a swirl of
white cotton dresses. Like great white rhythmic birds spreading
their wings, they led the procession for the reading of the
Gospel. With the help of their dancing percussionists, they
created a great swell of sound and joy, teasing the congregation
into spontaneous applause.  

The wealth of cultural expression included the swaying rhythms of
South Africa, the poignancy of African-American spirituals, and
melodious songs and hymns from England, Argentina, Korea and
Russian Orthodox traditions. As participants followed the
multi-lingual service booklet, some sang in Spanish, others in
French, many in Swahili. One chorus printed in Zulu moved many to
sway enthusiastically to its lively beat.

Bishop French Chang Him of the Diocese of the Seychelles in the
Province of the Indian Ocean, and Bishop Chilton Knudsen of the
Diocese of Maine in the United States, led the intercessions in
both French and English. Bishop John Sentamu of Stepney in
England, a former Ugandan high court judge, beat a brightly
painted four-foot Ugandan "wise man's drum" as he sang a Kenyan
version of the Gloria. Bible readings were read in Portuguese and
Arabic. 

Unity of the church a theme

The morning's unspoken theme became clear as choir and
congregation came to the final stanza of the new "Lambeth Hymn"
written for the conference. Composed by Timothy Dudley Smith,
evangelical hymn writer and retired suffragan bishop of Norwich
in England, and sung at the peace, the song implored God to
"renew, restore, unite, inspire the Church that bears your Name .
 . . . O grant us grace to heed your call and in that Name be
one." 

	The liturgy, a poignant Kenyan text, slid from English to
Swahili and back, challenging the international congregation to
listen carefully for meaning:

	"Is the Father with us?"

	He is. . . . 

	So began the Prayer of Thanksgiving. The call and response
continued, gaining strength in both languages as they were spoken
sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternately. When the words
"Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again" were
followed by "We have died. We will rise together. We will live
together," some said they found their voices catching. Hearing a
multitude of tongues recite the Lord's Prayer in different
languages also offered a particularly stirring reflection of the
conference's aim to find unity in diversity.

	In his sermon, Bishop Simon E. Chiwanga of the Diocese of
Mpwapwa in the Church in the Church in the Province of Tanzania,
and chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, reminded his
hearers about the sacred place in which they sat, and of how the
Cathedral symbolized common roots of costly witness. He did not
refer to Saint Thomas Becket whose martyrdom in the cathedral in
1170 turned it into a place of pilgrimage, but he did call the
gathered flock "a pilgrim people," and told the leaders of his
70-million member church how vital they are to a world hungry for
meaning. 

	Pointing to the "recent tragic loss of the Roman Catholic bishop
of Pakistan," the result of Christian-Islamic tensions, as well
as tribal conflicts in Africa, violence in Northern Ireland and
escalating terrorism around the world, he declared that many in
the communion face "both physical and spiritual deprivation." 

A call for Christ-like lives

He challenged the church to be more Christ-like in mission, and
not to allow bitterness, anger or disharmony to distort "its
image of a living gospel." It is in "mission in the world that we
grow into Christ's likeness," he said. "Evangelism must remain
our guiding principle . . . . We are called to be Christ-like in
our missionary drive."

	Bishop Chiwanga proclaimed the Anglican Communion's commitment
to the cause of canceling international debt "a powerful witness
of our following Jesus into the midst of the disadvantaged."  

	Finally, he offered his fellow leaders a little instruction in
interpretive charity, which he defined as "the ability to apply
the most loving interpretation to actions and opinions of others
 . . . listening to one another in love. It demands that we
restrain our impulse to start formulating our response before the
other has finished what they are saying."

	Responding to concerns that the conference may by marred by
sharp disagreements over controversial issues, such as
homosexuality and the ordination of women, Bishop Chiwanga
stressed the need for the bishops to model such charity.

"It is difficult, I know," he said, "[and it] calls us to
persevere with the discomfort of thoughtful silence and to use
that time of silence to prepare a loving response to what we have
heard . . . . Interpretive charity challenges us to avoid
demeaning labels that we are so eager to apply to our opponents."

	When the service ended, and the bishops and their wives strode
from the stone interior into a bright sunny noon to be greeted by
school children from all 15 of the Diocese of Canterbury's church
schools, also rushing to their sides came the journalists,
bearing boom mikes and cameras.

	The conference had begun.

A full text of Bishop Simon Chiwanga's sermon will be available
at the Anglican Communion web site (www.lambethconference.org),
or by contacting the Lambeth Conference Communications office.

For further information, contact:

Lambeth Conference Communications
Canterbury Business School
University of Kent at Canterbury
Telephone: 01227 827348/9
Fax: 01227 828085
Mobile: 0374 800212

http://www.lambethconference.org