wfn.org | Griswolds' Nigeria visit called 'incredible gift'

[ENS@ecunet.org]

2002-028

Griswolds' Nigeria visit called 'incredible gift'

by Jan Nunley and Emmanuel Adekola
jnunley@episcopalchurch.org
communicator1nig@yahoo.com

     (ENS) Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold says his visit 
(http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens/2002-021.html) to the Church of Nigeria 
January 15-23 "exceeded any expectations I might have had" and called the trip 
"an incredible gift" of insight into the challenges faced by Nigerian Anglicans.

     Griswold, his wife Phoebe, and four Church Center staff members spent nine 
days touring the three provinces of the largest church body in the Anglican 
Communion, and Griswold held a retreat for the Church of Nigeria's House of 
Bishops.

     Cities visited by the Griswold party included Abuja, Bida, Wuse, Enugu, 
Enugu-Ukwu, Onitsha, and Lagos.

Mixed feelings dispelled

     Conducting the retreat involved some risk-taking, Griswold said, for himself 
as well as the Nigerian bishops. "I think there was some fear that I was coming 
with an agenda," he said, "and I didn't know if my experience of Christ would 
speak to them." Nigerian Anglicans, most with strong evangelical roots, have been 
"formed by a different spirituality and sacramentality" than the Anglo-Catholic 
Griswold. But by the end of the retreat they regarded each other with "deep 
affection."

     He said some of the bishops were surprised at his response to a question 
about women's ordination. "I told them that 'you have your own cultural context 
and I would not presume to dictate'" to the Nigerian church about how to proceed 
on such issues, he said.

     The retreat was held in the IBRU Retreat Center in Aghara-Otor in Delta 
State. The Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, introduced his guest 
and his entourage to his brother bishops. He said that Archbishop of Canterbury 
George Carey, Griswold and himself were in the same study group during the 2001 
Primates' Retreat in Kanuga. It was then, he said, that he had the opportunity of 
a close encounter with Griswold and came to the conclusion that he was "a godly 
man, a man of deep piety and spirituality." 

     Akinola said he knew that participants in the retreat may have mixed 
feelings about their guest and the church he leads back in the United States, but 
was optimistic all such reservations would be dispelled by the time the retreat 
came to an end. 

Smiles from the heart

     Bishop Peter Adebiyi, secretary for the Church of Nigeria, gave a positive 
assessment of the retreat led by Griswold. "When the news came that he was coming 
to lead the retreat, it was [received] with mixed feelings because of the 
situation in America, with the kind of teaching in the churches there," Adebiyi 
stated. "People were not eager to receive him. In fact, there was a division in 
the House of Bishops. 

     "But since he arrived, it looks as if he is a different person entirely. The 
meditations he led were really perfect, enriching, down to earth, spiritual. So, 
with that, lots of people [bishops] have had a second opinion about him. The 
meditations were very good and we really enjoyed them." 

     Phoebe Griswold added it was remarkable that all the women's groups she met 
with in Nigeria displayed generous love and hospitality. "You smile from your 
heart!" she exclaimed at one point on the journey. She said she hoped her visit 
to Nigeria would "open her heart" and that she would take the same love back to 
the women of the Episcopal Church. 

     [Editor's Note: Nan Cobbey of Episcopal Life covered  the Presiding Bishop's 
visit to Nigeria.]

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News Service. The Rev. 
Canon Emmanuel Adekola is director of communication for the Church of Nigeria.