Ricky Yates

Naši pevci and Nsango Malamu in Kostel Salvátor © Sybille Yates

Holy Week 2011 proved to be very eventful and, to be chronologically correct, I really should have written and posted this article before writing and posting about the Royal Wedding. Therefore, before we get too much further into the fifty days of the Easter season, here is a short illustrated résumé.

On Monday 18^th April, Sybille & I attended an evening concert given by the ecumenical choir Naši pevci who were the choir that participated in our service entitled ‘On the Feast of Stephen’, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26^th December 2010. The concert took place in Kostel Salvátor, which like the Church building in which the St. Clement’s Anglican congregation worship, also belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.

The concert celebrated the life and work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer and therefore featured works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. But to celebrate that part of his life spent as a medical missionary in Gabon, there was also African singing and dancing, performed by Nsango Malamu. In between each item, the life story of Dr. Schweitzer was narrated, unfortunately only in Czech. The photograph shows both Naši pevci and Nsango Malamu receiving the applause of a packed Church at the end of the concert.

With Bishop Dušan Hejbal after the Chrism Eucharist © Sybille Yates

On Tuesday 19^th April, I attended the annual Chrism Eucharist which took place in the Old Catholic Cathedral on Petrin Hill, overlooking the centre of Prague. At this service, the oils used to anoint candidates for baptism, confirmation and for anointing the sick, are blessed. The service was presided over by my Czech boss, Bishop Dušan Hejbal. After the service, as well as being served some very enjoyable refreshments, I finally managed to get a good photo of the two of us together.

Wednesday 20^th April is probably best described as ‘media day’. As Karen, one of my most faithful commenters, has already pointed out in a previous comment, ‘The Prague Post’ that day published a feature article about me. This was the outcome of an interview I had given to their reporter Lisette Allen, a few weeks earlier. The original printed version contained two factual mistakes, together with a typo. I’m pleased to say that all three have now been corrected in the online version which you can access here.

Then in the afternoon came the phone call that I’ve already described in my previous post, inviting me to appear on Czech TV as part of their coverage of the Royal Wedding. And the Wednesday of Holy Week was also the day that we finally managed to bypass Czech bureaucracy and, much to Sybille’s pleasure, were allowed to adopt a dog! But that story requires another post!

New plaque outside Kostel sv. Klimenta/St. Clement's Church © Ricky Yates

Rev'd Ken Dimmick, Chaplain of St. Catherine's Anglican Church, Stuttgart © Ricky Yates

When Bishop Geoffrey Rowell visited the Prague Chaplaincy at the beginning of May this year, he mentioned during a Church Council meeting, about how under the ministry of Rev’d Ken Dimmick, the Anglican Church in Stuttgart had grown both numerically and financially. At a more recent Church Council meeting, some members made reference back to Bishop Geoffrey’s remarks and suggested that it might be good for the Prague Chaplaincy to learn from his experience.

Taking note of what had been said by the Church Council, I wrote to Ken in July, asking if I could visit him in Stuttgart and as suggested, ‘learn from his experience’. His reply was both prompt and positive – he would welcome me to visit though in his very modest way he declared that, “I’m not sure that I have any secret answers to church growth or financial success… Perhaps we were just lucky!”

Last Thursday 19^th August, just before 9am, I set out to drive to Stuttgart. It is a journey of just over 300 miles/480 km but, having reached the outskirts of Prague; it is then almost entirely on Czech motorway or German autobahn. I broke the journey with a coffee stop near Amberg in northern Bavaria and then had a sandwich lunch at a Rasthof about 20km north of Stuttgart.

I only had problems with the very last part of my journey as my Google map didn’t indicate that I needed to pass through a road tunnel near the centre of Stuttgart and I therefore avoided the tunnel and ended up several streets away from where I was meant to be. Eventually, I found the name of the street I was in and worked out from my downloaded Google map, how to reach the St. Catherine’s Church Parish Centre where I had agreed to meet Ken at 3pm that afternoon. I finally reached my intended destination with ten minutes to spare.

I spent the following twenty-four hours in Ken’s company, both going with him to a few fixed appointments as well as sharing an enjoyable evening meal together in a Stuttgart beer garden. Ken is an American priest, three years younger than me and a bachelor. He took up the Stuttgart appointment just over four years ago, wanting to do something different rather than remaining in parish ministry in Texas.

When Ken took up his post as Anglican Chaplain in Stuttgart, there were about nine people remaining in the congregation and no real money to pay him. So in advance of his arrival, he successfully raised $US 100,000 from friends and supporters in Texas to help fund the first few years of his ‘Mission to Germany’! This enabled him to rent an apartment in the Stuttgart suburbs and have enough to live on whilst he sought to grow the congregation.

In just over four years, the congregation has grown to between 80-90 on a Sunday and they are now able to pay Ken a modest stipend. He still has some of the US money to fall back on if need be – what he refers to as his ‘Texas slush fund’! Whilst the Church building, (which they share with the German Old Catholics), will hold around 120 people, it has no other facility other than a small meeting room added to the side of the Church over twenty years ago. This began to prove increasingly inadequate as the Anglican congregation grew.

St. Catherine's Church Parish Centre, Stuttgart © Ricky Yates

In November 2008 St. Catherine’s took a lease on a former bakery which has gradually been renovated and transformed into a parish centre and office. The Parish Centre is located only a few minutes walk from St. Catherine’s Church. Initially, Ken gave up his suburban apartment and lived in a couple of rooms at the rear of the bakery. Just under a year ago, a small flat in the complex above the bakery became vacant. Ken now lives in this small flat allowing the Parish Centre to be increased in size. Instead of living ‘behind the shop’ he now lives ‘above the shop’!

The Parish Centre is used for after service refreshments on Sunday morning together with Sunday School. During the week there are a variety of events including services of Morning and Evening Prayer, Bible Studies and a Mums and Toddlers Group. Ken has his office in the front of the building which in turn, becomes the shop window for the Church, both figuratively and literally! On the Thursday afternoon whilst I was sitting there talking to Ken, three German youths dropped by wanting to know more about the Anglican Church!

However, being located in an old bakery does attract interesting requests. As can be seen in the photo below, there is still sign protruding from the building with the picture of a pretzel on it. More than two years after the bakery closed down, people still call in wanting to buy bread or cakes. Ken’s response is to say to all who enquire that he offers ‘The bread of life’!

More than anything, it was this Parish Centre with Ken being based there, that most impressed me. Whilst Sybille and I live in a very nice flat, it is out in the suburbs and not in the city centre of Prague. And we have nowhere which is a ‘shop window’ for St. Clement’s during the week. In other respects, what Ken has done to build up the Church in Stuttgart both numerically and financially, is very similar to what I have been doing since arriving in Prague nearly two years ago. In that respect, my conversations with Ken were very reassuring.

St. Catherine's Church Parish Centre, Stuttgart. Note the protruding sign with a picture of a pretzil © Ricky Yates

So is there somewhere in Prague, not too far from St. Clement’s Church, which could become our ‘Parish Centre’ and office? Even better, somewhere with accommodation above where we could live? Am I dreaming or have I caught a vision for what under God, we might possibly be able to do?

Bishop Geoffrey Rowell outside St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Sybille Yates

Sincere apologies to everyone who follows my blog that I haven’t posted anything for more than three weeks. It has been a very busy time with preparations for our Annual Church Meeting held on Sunday 25^th April and the following weekend having an Episcopal visit from The Rt. Rev’d Dr. Geoffrey Rowell. Although his visit gave me an extremely busy two days, the timing of it allowed him to help the newly elected Church Council begin addressing issues arising out of the Annual Meeting and helping us plot a way forward through the financial problems we are currently facing.

Such is the size of the Anglican Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe that this was the first visit Bishop Geoffrey had made to the Prague Chaplaincy since March 2005. He was meant to stay on for an Episcopal visit after attending the annual meeting between Anglican and Old Catholic Bishops which took place at Karlik, just outside Prague, at the end of January 2009 which I wrote about in an article entitled ‘Episcopal Taxi Service’, my first ever blog post. But plans changed when it was announced that the newly elected Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church was to be enthroned in Moscow on Sunday 1^st February 2009 and Bishop Geoffrey had instead to be in attendance there, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Volcanic ash having finally cleared, Bishop Geoffrey flew into Prague from London Gatwick, late on the evening of Friday 30^th April. I met him at the airport and drove him to the Chaplaincy Flat where he stayed in our guest bedroom for two nights. Oscar immediately made friends with him but was a little put out at being banished from a room that he regards as his bedroom!

On Saturday morning, we had a long talk updating Bishop Geoffrey about the various issues facing the Chaplaincy which would be the main subjects for discussion at the first meeting of the newly elected Church Council later that afternoon. Then the Churchwardens took him out for lunch for their own private conversations with him, before bringing him on to the Council meeting. In the evening, we took him for a short walking tour of the Old Town before he treated us to supper at Krcma, one of our favourite eating places that specialises in Czech cuisine.

With Bishop Geoffrey outside St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Sybille Yates

On Sunday morning, Bishop Geoffrey was the celebrant and preacher at our Sunday Eucharist. During the service, the newly elected Churchwardens took their oaths of office. Normally each year, they do this before me and I admit them to office on behalf of the Bishop. With the Bishop being present, he was able to do it for himself! Following the service, Bishop Geoffrey met with many of the congregation at Coffee Hour in nearby Klimentská 18.

Sunday afternoon and early evening were taken up with Episcopal meetings. Whenever Bishop Geoffrey makes a Chaplaincy visit, he likes to meet the leader of the majority Church of the country where the Chaplaincy is situated which in our case is the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop Geoffrey knew Cardinal Vlk, the previous Roman Catholic Archbishop of Prague, very well. However, Cardinal Vlk was finally allowed by the Pope to retire earlier this year and has been succeeded by Archbishop Dominik Duka. Archbishop Duka is very newly in post having only been enthroned in St. Vitus Cathedral on 10^th April.

Our meeting took place in the Archbishop’s Palace which overlooks Hradcanské namestí at the western end of Prague Castle. We (Bishop Geoffrey, Churchwarden Gerry Turner & I) were greeted warmly by Father Tomáš Roule, who was secretary to Cardinal Vlk and has retained that role with Archbishop Duka. Fortunately, he trained for the priesthood in Ireland and therefore has good English. It was through my contacts with Father Tomáš that I had been able to organise this meeting.

Archbishop Duka also greeted us very warmly telling Bishop Geoffrey how pleased he was to welcome his first ecumenical guest! There discussions ranged over a wide range of issues including the forthcoming visit by Pope Benedict to the UK. Although Gerry was there to translate, we soon discovered that Archbishop Duka could speak quite good English which he insisted on using and only occasionally turned to Gerry for help with some more difficult phrases. My only regret is that I accidentally left my camera in the car and therefore did not get a photographic record of the meeting.

Episcopal meeting in Restaurace Století. From l to r; Bishop Geoffrey, Gerry Turner, Bishop Dušan, Petr Jan Vinš © Ricky Yates

In the early evening, our second Episcopal meeting took place, this time with Bishop Dušan of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic under whose joint jurisdiction, along with that of Bishop Geoffrey, I come. This was a very convivial affair over a meal in Restaurace Století which is opposite the Rotunda of the Holy Cross where Bishop Dušan had just conducted a Sunday Evening Eucharist. As well as Gerry, we were also joined by Rev’d Petr Jan Vinš and between them, they translated from English to Czech and Czech to English as neither Bishop speaks the other’s native tongue! This time I did remember my camera.

Finally, it was back to the airport so that Bishop Geoffrey could catch his return flight to London Gatwick. The end of a very busy, exhausting but worthwhile weekend.

Kardinal Schulte Haus - note the scaffolding! © Ricky Yates

I must apologise once more that, despite returning safely to Prague last Friday evening, other than approving a couple of nice comments (and deleting a host of spammers!!), I’ve taken far longer than originally intended to write a new post about last week’s conference.

As I explained in my previous post, the theme of the conference was ‘Entertaining Angels – Hospitality as Mission’. The title is based on a verse from the New Testament where the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells his readers, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for so by doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” Hebrews 13 v2. But who are the hosts who give the hospitality and who are the guests that receive it?

One speaker, Professor Musa Dube from Botswana, pointed out that we are all guests on this earth. Basing her Bible Study on the creation narrative in Genesis 1, she rightly pointed out that that it is God’s earth, for he created it, and we are his guests, invited to live in it and care for it. However, in the context of being clergy serving in the Church of England’s Diocese in Europe, we are nearly all guests, living and working within host countries. I say ‘nearly all’ because, as a result of the Porvoo Agreement between the Anglican Churches of Great Britain and Ireland and the Lutheran Churches of the Nordic and Baltic countries, a number of Lutheran priests from the Nordic and Baltic countries work in Anglican chaplaincies in their own native countries and were present at the conference.

Not only are we guests in our host countries, many Anglican Chaplaincies in Europe, including mine here in Prague, are guests of another Christian Church or denomination using buildings that do not belong to us. Only in some of the long established chaplaincies in major capital cities or in resort areas where ‘Brits’ first settled in the nineteenth century, do Anglicans worship in their own Church buildings. But whilst we are guests in host countries and of host Churches, we in turn seek to be hosts and provide hospitality to expat English-speakers who find themselves well away from their normal support mechanisms. How we do that – how we fulfil that important mission, was a constant theme of both our speakers and of our resulting discussions.

As is so often the case at conferences such as this one, some of the most valuable and profitable learning and discussion took place over meals or in convivial late night sessions in the bar. Not too late I might add as we all had to be washed, dressed and in the Chapel for worship at 07.30 each morning! It was a privilege to meet up with five other clergy who all trained with me at Wycliffe Hall Theological College. 1987/8 was clearly a very good year!

It was also good to get to know many people who, up until now, were purely names in a directory or on a prayer list. It was valuable to listen to their experiences, some in similar major city locations like mine, as well as to others who work in more rural or coastal areas of France and Spain where so many English-speakers have moved for a ‘better life’ or to retire.

The Suffragen Bishop in Europe, The Rt. Rev’d David Hamid is also a blogger and you can read his take on the conference in his post appropriately entitled, ‘Entertaining Angels – Hospitality as Mission’. It also includes a link to a number of photos of the conference though I don’t appear in any of them.

One thing about the conference for me was a certain case of déjà vu. Our flat in Prague was built as part of the first stage of a major development of flats on the site of a former brewery. Ever since we moved in just over a year ago, we have had to live with the builders working on the fourth and final stage of the development directly in front and to the side of our balconies. The noise and dust can at times be quite irritating. What do I find when I arrive at Kardinal Schulte Haus? The building is under repair and there are workmen repairing the roof, directly outside my third floor bedroom window! At least the noise ensured I wasn’t late for Morning Prayer!

Former Anglican Church in Mariánské Lázne © Sybille Yates

On Tuesday 17th, I returned to the flat from our Breakfast Study Group & visiting a family who had enquired about the baptism of their child, to a request that I return a phone call from a retired Pastor of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.

The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren are a united Lutheran/Reformed Church and are by far the largest Protestant denomination in the Czech Republic. Once I got through, the retired Pastor asked me what I knew about the Anglican Church building in Mariánské lázne and about a person who claimed to be the Anglican Bishop of the Czech Republic and was conducting services there.

Mariánské lázne is a spa town in the far west of the Czech Republic, near to the German border. Better known in the past, by its German name of Marienbad, it was very popular with the upper classes of various European countries in the second half of the nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries. King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, was one of many Britons who visited to ‘take the waters’. An Anglican Church was built there and opened in 1879. It remained in use for Anglican worship until sometime in the 1920/30s and following the communist takeover in 1948, was confiscated by the state. After the fall of communism in 1989, some limited financial compensation was agreed and paid into the accounts of the Prague Anglican Episcopal Congregation. These funds partly helped pay the deposit on the flat that Sybille & I live in. The Church building now belongs to the local council in Mariánské lázne who has restored it to good order and use it as a small concert venue & gallery.

All this I told the retired Pastor and he agreed that this was his understanding too. However, one of his colleagues in Mariánské lázne, had been in touch with him regarding someone calling himself the Anglican Bishop of the Czech Republic, who since the summer of 2008 had been holding services in Mariánské lázne, using the former Anglican Church building. What did I know about him?

This information immediately rang bells. Back in October 2008, we had a similar report from a member of an Anglican congregation in Switzerland. Unfortunately at that time, we were given a partially incorrect name and could not discover anything more. But now I had his full name, The Rt. Rev’d Dr. Edwin Wagner. And aided by that helpful friend called Google, a clearer picture emerged, even allowing for the fact that quite a bit of the material was in Czech.

Edwin Wagner is Episcopi vagantes - this Wikipedia article will explain. He belongs to an exceedingly small group who style themselves ‘Traditional Church of England’. Typical of such groups, they have four ‘bishops’ and only five other ‘clergy’. The expression ‘too many Chiefs and not enough Indians’ comes to mind. According to their website, they seek to ‘continue the best Anglican traditions and values’. Yet a few lines later they state that this includes the use of the Roman Catholic English Missal!!!!

In Mariánské lázne, Edwin Wagner has taken full advantage of the fact that a historic restored building is still known as ‘The Anglican Church,’ even though it hasn’t been used for Anglican worship for over seventy years. It was only when his delusions of grandeur got the better of him and he claimed that, what is a publicly owned concert hall and gallery, had now been upgraded to the status of a Pro-Cathedral, that the local clergy began to smell a rat, eventually leading to the phone enquiry of ten days ago.

Last Saturday, we drove the 100 miles/160 km out to Mariánské lázne to investigate for ourselves. The small town is beautifully situated in a wooded valley and had recently experienced a quite heavy snowfall. And after the years of communist neglect, many of the wonderful late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings have been restored to their former glory. Walking the streets, we heard more German being spoken than Czech with many day or weekend visitors from across the nearby border.

Mariánské Lázne in the snow © Sybille Yates

We found the ‘Anglican Church’ but were disappointed to read a notice on the door stating ‘Im Winter geschlossen’ and similarly in Czech. Likewise, there were no notices about Church services conducted by Edwin Wagner. This rather confirmed the information we had been given that he had not been seen around the town by the other Christian ministers since just before Christmas.

A few days ago, I decided to bite the bullet and rang the mobile phone number given for Edwin Wagner on the ‘Traditional Church of England’ website. He answered in person and I asked whether he was still holding Church services in Mariánské lázne. He told me that they were to resume in a couple of weeks time in the same building. I challenged him about calling his services ‘Church of England’ or ‘Anglican’, and he claimed in reply that he makes it clear that he is “not in communion with the see of Canterbury”. But if you look at this website, the German description ‘Die Anglikanische Kirche’ is used. My wife, who is a native German speaker, says that any German speaker reading that would inevitably understand that as being the Church of England. Likewise, I have sufficient Czech to know that any Czech person reading ‘Anglikánská cirkev’ would also understand that as meaning the Church of England. All he has done is put the letters ‘TCE’ on his publicity, with no explanation whatsoever as to what they stand for.

Now the Christian ministers and the Town Council in Mariánské lázne know that Edwin Wagner isn’t an Anglican Bishop in the sense of being a bishop in the mainstream Church of England, I think he might find it more difficult to resume his activities. But the whole affair has left me feeling very sad that an individual has been practising what is effectively a form of deception in the name of the Christian Church. I also felt that the response I received from the retired Czech Evangelical Brethren Pastor was very pertinent. He thanked me for my detective work for which he was most grateful. But he concluded, “This is one of the troublesome realities of our time, that in spite of large secularisation and the small number of Christians in contemporary Europe, they still split and form further and further denominations. This is a reality even in the Czech speaking community”.

Update – 18^th October 2010

Early in 2010, I discovered that Edwin Wagner was no longer in Mariánské lázne but was now living in Desborough, Northamptonshire, England. I believe he moved there in August/September 2009. According to the ‘Traditional Church of England’ website, he is leading a TCE congregation there. I have found no way to verify whether this is the case or not.

Then in June 2010, I received an angry letter from Dr. Wagner, claiming that I had ‘written and posted a libellous article on the internet’ about him. He gave no indication as to where on the internet this article was to be found and the internet is rather a large place! The letter threatened me with legal action through the English courts if I didn’t ‘make a public retraction and publicly apologise’.

It seemed fairly clear to me that Dr. Wagner had not actually read my blog post, (which I presumed he was referring to), but had only heard about it second-hand. His letter accused me of saying a number of things which are not in the text above. On 23^rd June 2010, I wrote him a long reply, addressing all the issues he raised. In the meantime, I temporarily took down the post with a view to making one or two minor amendments to it. When I then received a phone call from him saying he would be coming to Prague in August & would like to arrange to meet me, I decided to refrain from re-posting until we had finally met.

In August, I received an email from Dr. Wagner saying that, because of family circumstances, his Prague visit would now be in September. I replied saying I would still be very happy to meet him in September as long as he avoided the dates of the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod when I would be in Vienna. I have heard nothing further from him since.

Therefore, I am re-posting the original article in a slightly amended form, together with this update. The small number of changes I have incorporated are simply to give greater clarity to what I originally wrote.