My ongoing ministry at the Frauenkirche, Dresden

Walking towards the Frauenkirche © Ricky Yates

I’m very conscious of two things. That I haven’t posted here for two months and that most of my more recent posts have either been about my disputes with UK banks or about the renovation of my house. So here is a new post about my ongoing ministry at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, a topic I haven’t written about since February 2020, except for briefly mentioning it in my post about last winter.

The day after our December 2022 service of ‘Nine Lessons & Carols for Christmas’, my Archdeacon Leslie Nathaniel and I had a most useful meeting with the two Frauenkirche clergy – Pfarrer Markus Engelhardt and Pfarrerin Angelika Behnke. Archdeacon Leslie asked about the possibility of having a second English-language Anglican service each month, on a weekday, with it being held in the Unterkirche, beneath the main Hauptraum of the Frauenkirche. They promised to consider this idea and get back to me in due course.

There is a regular Ecumenical Evening Prayer service held at 18.00 each Thursday in the Unterkirche. Early in 2023, one of the groups who have normally led a service each month, withdrew, because of lack of personnel. Asking me to take over their timeslot both solved a problem for the Frauenkirche authorities and gave a positive answer to our request. Therefore, on Thursday 25th May, I held my first Thursday English-language Anglican Evening Prayer service in the Unterkirche.

The Unterkirche © Ricky Yates

The Unterkirche was the first part of the Frauenkirche to be rebuilt and was completed and consecrated in 1996. It was used for regular Sunday worship whilst rebuilding continued above it. Now, when the main Hauptraum is open for visitors, the Unterkirche is kept as a place to sit quietly and/or pray. It is a wonderful venue in which to conduct worship with a relatively small congregation.

To gain access you have to walk down a flight of stone steps. Unfortunately, in advance of my first service, I managed to trip on my cassock whilst descending the last few steps and ended up in a heap on the floor. There were no broken bones but plenty of swelling and bruising. It took over two months before my right leg finally returned to its normal shape and size. I now walk down those steps very carefully, lifting my cassock as a go!

Page 22 & 23 of ‘Leben in der Frauenkirche September-December 2023

A full colour magazine entitled, ‘Leben in der Frauenkirche‘ is published three times a year. The current September-December 2023 edition features a two page bilingual article, written by me, about English-language Anglican worship at the Frauenkirche which I reproduce here. I’m hoping it will help make the new Thursday evening services more widely known as well as giving some background and history to the regular monthly Sunday evening services.

One thing this double-page spread confirms, is something I already knew from my career in publishing, before I was ordained. German needs up to 20% more space than English 🙂 On page 25, the German column starts higher up the page than the English column and my last paragraph has not been translated in full, in order to make things fit 😉

I’ve written a book!

My book © Ricky Yates

After sitting in a warehouse near Prague Airport for several days, awaiting customs clearance, yesterday, courtesy of UPS, a parcel containing three copies of my ‘Collection of Life Stories’ was delivered to me at my home. Yesterday evening, I posted this photo on Facebook and was rather overwhelmed by the number of ‘likes’ and ‘loves’ it received with several people saying that they wanted copies of the book. Therefore I decided that a blog post of explanation was called for.

For my 70th birthday in February 2022, my daughter Christa gifted me a one year subscription to Storyworth. What this has meant is that once a week on a Monday, I have received an emailed question about my life to which I had to reply. Each of . . . → Read More: I’ve written a book!

Renovating the sitting-dining room and other parts of my house

Roses alongside the front door © Ricky Yates

As I wrote at the end of my previous post, K & K, (as in K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín), besides renovating my study-bedroom, have also done work in other parts of the house. This is the promised further blog post describing and illustrating their work.

The ground floor of the house has only three main rooms – my study-bedroom, a kitchen and adjacent small shower room, (completely refurbished in January 2018), and a sitting-dining room.

The sitting-dining room, along with the adjacent entrance lobby, is the newest part of the house. As a result, there was no need to do anything to the walls, other than painting them . . . → Read More: Renovating the sitting-dining room and other parts of my house

Renovating my Study-Bedroom

Stará Oleška 44 © Ricky Yates

I have now lived in my retirement home in Stará Oleška for six years. During that time the only major work I’ve had done to the interior of the house was the refurbishment of the kitchen and adjoining shower room in January 2018 when, for three weeks, I was living in the middle of a building site.

At that time, I did ask Elefant, the firm that installed my new kitchen and shower, if they would be interested in carrying out further work on the house. But they were booked up for several months ahead and also were really only interested in work that involved kitchens and bathrooms, installing units and fittings that they themselves sell out of their showroom in Decín.

. . . → Read More: Renovating my Study-Bedroom

Brexit, Barclays & HSBC Banks – Postscript

The view from my bedroom balcony in Beatenberg, Switzerland © Ricky Yates

Late in the evening on Tuesday 11th April, I logged in online to my HSBC Sterling bank account, to discover that the age of miracles is not quite yet past. Nearly four months to the day since I had first requested it, earlier that day, the balance of my closed and frozen Barclays Bank account had finally been transferred. And, in a lot less than fifteen working days since the transfer was promised!

Since that day, I have pondered whether it was worth compiling yet another letter, pointing out to Barclays their series of failures and seeking some compensation for the costs I have incurred. Or deciding whether I should leave things and just be thankful that I finally once more have . . . → Read More: Brexit, Barclays & HSBC Banks – Postscript