Month: February 2011

This is St Paul’s Cathedral, Kolkata [Calcutta] where I hope to preside and preach on Sunday week. We’re in the process of putting together a Companionship Link between our diocese and the Diocese of Calcutta. I’m going next Tuesday for a five day visit with two others from the diocese. I’ve had the injections and am well into the malaria stuff.

Meanwhile, after the excitement of the Argyll Consecration – fairly remarkable photograph, don’t you think – I’ve had all the thrills of a day of Provincial Standing Committee and two days of College of Bishops. Sometimes it is all overwhelming! But some things are, I think, better than they used to be. Agendas are less inclined to over-run their time. There are some [very] slight signs of a thaw on the ecumenical front. But let’s not get too excited for now ..

Well we got the mitre on Kevin’s head yesterday as he became Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. I don’t know how many times I drove the 104 miles from Blogstead to Oban in the cause of our Canon 4 electoral process – but it had become very familiar. And in the end, of course, we had to use the canonical provision for election by the Episcopal Synod.

It was of course a great moment. Of what I shall risk calling the indigenous clergy of the Scottish Episcopal Church, there can be very few for whom Kevin has not been a significant influence in his role as Provincial Director of Ordinands. Now he takes on fresh challenges – may that prayerful passion for ministry which he expresses with every breath bring new confidence and hope to the clergy and people of his diocese.

You have probably been wondering why I haven’t got around to saying anything about the Primates’ Meeting. Well it was interesting – and exhausting – even though it didn’t involve any serious travel for me. Here I am with my Celtic companions, Archbishops Barry and Alan.

First of all, I found the opportunities of building contacts and making friends quite extraordinary. It makes a difference – if one is talking about blasphemy laws in Pakistan – to be sitting beside Bishop Samuel Azariah of the Church of Pakistan. Far off places suddenly become very close. And that’s what Communion is about.

Secondly, I felt keenly the disappointment of not being with those who had decided that they could not be part of the meeting. It was my first Primates’ Meeting. I felt the poorer for not hearing what they had to say and having the chance of discussing with them.

But it was still a good and worthwhile meeting. As the statements make clear, the Meeting spent much time clarifying the role of the Primates’ Meeting as one of the Instruments of Communion. It should not be a place where decisions are made for the Communion or for Provinces. It was clear that most of us come – as I do – from Provinces where decision-making is collegial and consultative within our autonomous provincial structure.

So when our College of Bishops meets next week, my colleagues will not expect me to bring back a series of decisions for implementation. But they will want me to share with them the best account I can give of how other Provinces are dealing with the same problems as we face. That won’t just be an account of how far-off places are doing – because through the Instruments of Communion we expect to respond to the feelings and the difficulties of other Provinces. As they respond to us. That’s what it means to be a Communion.

Fame again. Sources tell me that I can be found at 22 across in the Daily Telegraph Crossword. Is there no limit to the reach of the Scottish Episcopal Church?