By the time I publish this blog post, there will be little more than 12 hours to go before their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive outside St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, to be greeted by me and the Churchwardens and then join us for worship. Judging by the comments I’ve received on my previous posts, there seems to be many readers enjoying my regular updates. So here is one final update in advance of the big day.
As I mentioned previously, I had yet another meeting in the late afternoon of Thursday 18th March with various security personnel, both British and Czech, seeking to ascertain what would happen when the official party arrives, who would sit where and how the service would proceed. Hopefully, we’ve now got everything sorted.
Yesterday afternoon, I finally completed printing, folding and stapling 100 copies of a special Order of Service for the day. I’ve been through it several times with my proofreader’s eye, which I still have from previous career in publishing, so hopefully it contains no glaring errors or omissions.
This morning, I completed compiling my sermon, trying to give an exposition of the Biblical Readings in a similar manner that I would without British royalty being present. Yet as I wrote, I always seemed to have in the back of my mind the thought, ‘…what would the Prince and the Duchess think if I said that?’ Of course, what I should have been thinking was not that the future King of the United Kingdom would be present, but rather that the King of Kings will be present!
This afternoon, I took the tram in the centre of Prague in order to take a variety of things, including the Orders of Service, to the Church so I have far fewer things to worry about tomorrow morning. It was very clear that the Prague city authorities had been busy. All around the Church the pavements had been swept. Likewise, the gutters and road surface had also been cleaned and the recycling bins completely removed.
As I mentioned in the previous post, even last Sunday there were already signs erected forbidding anyone to leave a parked car in the vicinity of the Church between 08.00 – 13.00 tomorrow. This afternoon I noticed that many local residents had already heeded the warning and removed their vehicles to a safer place. Those that fail to do so will discover that their cars have been physically lifted onto the back of a truck and removed to a secure compound and their owners will be considerably lighter in pocket after reclaiming them!
So hopefully, all is now ready – or at least as ready as it is ever going to be! And after all the cold and snow, even the weather has improved with temperatures in the mid-teens Celsius. However, the forecast is that we might have a few light rain showers tomorrow. I just hope and pray that they hold off until after the service is over and the Royal couple are on their way to their next engagement.
Yes – it is only three days to go before Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, arrive outside St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, ready to join the regular congregation for Sunday Morning worship. So I thought my blog readers might appreciate an update as to how preparations for the big day are going.
Liturgy – Earlier yesterday, I finally finished drafting and typing the Order of Service that we will use on Sunday. Normally at St. Clements, everybody gets an Order of Service containing the liturgy, a hymn book, together with a copy of our Weekly Bulletin which contains the text of the Collect and Bible Readings, the notices for the coming week and contact details for me and members of the Church Council.
For this special service, I always planned that we would produce a single booklet containing not only the liturgy, but also the words of the hymns and Bible Readings, together with the weekly notices. The idea was that this would be something people could take away with them as a memento of this special occasion.
Putting something like this all together, always takes far longer than you originally think it will. And having to make considerable changes late last Thursday hasn’t helped the cause. But hopefully now, the master copy currently sitting on my desk, will be passing through my little photocopier in the next couple of days, producing for each booklet, five A4 pieces of paper printed on both sides, which when folded and stapled, will create a 20 page A5 booklet.
Security – This seems to be becoming the ever increasing nightmare with regard to the Prince and the Duchess attending Sunday worship at St. Clements. Later today, I have yet another meeting at the Church with both Czech & British security personnel. Last Sunday, there were already signs erected all around the Church, saying parking would be prohibited between 8am and 1pm on Sunday 21st March. I gather that even the very convenient recycling bins that are on the street alongside the Church, are to be removed.
All I do hope is that over zealous Czech police do not prevent members of the regular congregation gaining access to the Church on Sunday. The Church service was always envisaged as a semi-private event as far as the British Embassy was concerned. However, the protocol office of the Czech President and the Czech police seem to think differently!
Visitors – One of the most amazing things about this Royal Visit is the number of friends and relatives of regular members of the congregation, who suddenly want to come to Church! Yes – please forgive my little dose of cynicism, but it is a case of ‘to see and be seen’. Of course they are welcome to come though, for security reasons, I’ve said that they do need to come with a regular member who can vouch for who they are. But I do hope that this visit will raise the profile of the Church and bring us into far better contact with the wider English-speaking expat community here in Prague.
The Press – Today I was interviewed by Tomáš Kutil, a journalist from Katolický týdeník, (Catholic Weekly), the foremost Roman Catholic newspaper in the Czech Republic. He wanted to know my thoughts about this forthcoming Royal Visit as well as to know more about the Anglican Church. It will be interesting to see what appears in next week’s edition when it is published on Tuesday 23rd March.
But whilst there is considerable press interest about the Royal Visit to the Czech Republic, I am very disappointed with the attitude of the BBC. I do not have a television so I keep up-to-date with what is going on in the world by regularly visiting the BBC News website. So far, there has been absolutely no coverage whatsoever of the Royal Visit to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic on the BBC News website. The Royal Couple are now in Hungary having spent the past three days in Poland.
The British media who are covering the trip in detail, are ‘The Daily Telegraph’, frequently known as ‘The Torygraph’, and the ’Daily Mail’, the newspaper produced for all those unable to think for themselves! The BBC is often accused by Conservative Party politicians, of being left-wing rather than unbiased as it is meant to be. By ignoring this three country official visit by Their Royal Highnesses, and leaving coverage to the right-wing press, the BBC are giving further ammunition to all those who would want to damage and dismantle it.
My Accredited Photographer wife – Talking about press coverage reminds me to say that, for the first time ever, Sybille has become an accredited Press Photographer. She has been granted accreditation to cover the arrival of the Prince and Duchess outside St Clement’s Church. We are off to the British Embassy today to pick up the official documentation.
The idea is that the photos she takes can be reproduced in our Diocesan Magazine, ‘The European Anglican’ and also appear on the Diocesan website, as well as on www.anglican.cz . I may even be allowed to post one or two on this blog!
Sermon – What are you going to preach about? This is a question that has been asked of me several times in recent days. Looking at the Biblical readings set by the lectionary for this Sunday, one verse continues to resonate with me. It is the words of St. Paul when he says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings” – Philippians 3 v10. The joy of resurrection but, before that, suffering. Very significant words to ponder as we enter Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter.
On Monday 1st March I published a blog post entitled ‘Finally, the snow has melted’ describing how, after seven weeks, the snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January, had all but disappeared. I’m afraid I spoke to soon.
I took this picture yesterday morning, Saturday 6th March, which shows my car parked outside the block of flats where we live. It had started snowing during the night and did not cease until early in the afternoon. Since then, the sky has cleared with a temperature of -10 Celsius being recorded at 6am this morning. Winter isn’t over yet!
This is a blog post that I started formulating almost two months ago. But for reasons that will be obvious as you read on further, it was only 48 hours ago that I was allowed to speak or write publicly about most of what follows.
The story starts on the morning of Monday 11th January 2010 when I received an email from the British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sian MacLeod, alerting me to ‘a visit next weekend by an official group from the UK who would very much like to visit your church’. Her colleague, the Second Secretary Alex Pykett would be in touch with me shortly to make arrangements and she expressed the hope that I would be able to help. I duly replied that I would help in whatever way I could.
A couple of days later, I had a phone call from the Second Secretary. Please could he and the ‘official group from the UK’, meet me at the Church on Saturday 16th January at 2 pm. When I enquired whether this was security related he agreed that it was and that he would be able to tell me more when we met.
Putting two and two together, I realised that what was mind must be some form of Royal Visit. What I did not yet know was who the visitors were to be. Was it to be Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh or HRH Prince Charles and HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall? To save the mouthfuls, over the next few days Sybille and I reduced this to either E & P or C & C!
On Saturday 16th January, I travelled into central Prague from the Chaplaincy flat, opened the Church and awaited the arrival of the official party. Just before 2 pm, a car drew up and parked nearby. The driver came across to me and introduced himself. He was an officer of the Czech Secret Service, sent by the Office of the Czech President to meet with the ‘official group from the UK’ to discuss the proposed visit of Prince Charles + Camilla. So it was to be C & C.
Soon afterwards, a minibus pulled up and out stepped the ‘official group from the UK’, led by Alex Pykett the Second Secretary. There were nine or ten people in total and I never got to know who all of them were. Those I did speak with were the Princes’ Private Secretary, his Personal Protection Officer and his Press Secretary, together with the Duchess’ Lady-in-Waiting. We discussed in detail what normally happens at our regular 11am service each Sunday and the special arrangements to be made to allow the Prince and the Duchess to attend and worship with us.
The real shock came when I asked about the date of the proposed visit. I had assumed such visits would be organised several months in advance and presumed we would be talking about September or October 2010. You can therefore imagine my surprise when the reply came that, whilst the exact date had not finally been agreed, it would either be Sunday 14th or Sunday 21st March.
The great emphasis throughout all of our discussions was that the proposed visit had to be kept very hush-hush. This was partly due to the exact dates and arrangements still being sorted out. But sadly, the overriding concern was that of security. By not announcing details of the proposed visit until a few weeks before it is planned to take place, any terrorist would have far less time to organise something. I therefore concluded that at least some of the members of the visiting group who I did not really speak with, were officers of MI5, sussing out all the security implications of such a Royal Visit.
Despite the need for secrecy, I did share the basic details with the Church Council when they met the following day. For depending which Sunday the visit was to take place, it could have had implications regarding other Church activities. But nothing could be made public to the wider congregation until I had the say-so from the British Embassy.
On Friday 5th February, I had a second meeting at Church with Alex Pykett and his diplomatic colleague John Davies. As well as clarifying various practical details regarding the Church service, it was confirmed to me that the date would be Sunday 21st March. I was also told that this was all part of a three country tour with the Prince and the Duchess visiting Poland and Hungary, before arriving in the Czech Republic. The royal couple would be arriving from Budapest the previous day.
I was also promised that towards the end of the following week, there would be an official announcement by the British Embassy about the visit. However, this would still be in very general terms and not including a detailed programme of events. In the meantime it was still very hush-hush – please don’t tell anyone.
It was therefore quite a surprise when the following morning, one of the Churchwardens phoned me saying, “I see the news of the visit is out”. He sent me a link to an article on the website of the Czech newspaper Dnes (Today) with news of the forthcoming royal visit. I soon found an English-language piece on the website of the Czech News Agency CTK. Both articles credited the source of their information as being ‘unnamed diplomatic sources’. I was later informed that the source of the leak to was believed to have been in Hungary!
Finally, late on Thursday 11th February, the promised official announcement was posted on the British Embassy website and a similar press release was made by Clarence House in London. But again, mainly because of security concerns, there was still no detailed programme nor could I yet tell the regular members of the congregation that, as part of the impending royal visit, the Prince and the Duchess would be attending Sunday worship at St. Clements.
On Wednesday 3rd March at 8.30am, I had my third meeting at the Church, this time with the Director of Protocol of the Office of the Czech President, together with several senior officers of the Czech Police. Once more, Alex Pykett was there and helped finalise the necessary security arrangements.
However, the really good news last Wednesday was that later that day, there would be an announcement of the programme for the Royal Visit on the British Embassy website which would in turn give me the green light to tell all the members of the congregation and also be able to publish this blog post!
I have to say that I feel a certain sense of relief that I am finally free to talk openly about the forthcoming Royal Visit. It has occupied quite a bit of my time over these past two months. On quite a number of recent occasions I have had to bite my lip and refrain from saying something in order to maintain the requested secrecy. It hasn’t been easy.
I am also quite encouraged that attending Christian worship is seen as an important ingredient of the visit by the royal couple to the Czech Republic. This is in notable contrast to the visit of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to Prague in 2009. Instead of attending a Church service, President Obama made his major European speech about promoting a nuclear-free world, standing alongside Prague Castle, but on the morning of Palm Sunday!
I previously blogged about the heavy snowfall that started in Prague on Friday 8th January 2010 and continued right through the weekend. The photo on the left shows my car on the Saturday morning after snow had fallen continuously for 24 hours. As I remarked in my more recent post about the visit of the Archdeacon to Prague on the weekend of 30th-31st January, most of the snow that fell then was still lying on the ground during his visit. However, after more than six weeks of temperatures almost permanently being below freezing, finally during the past week, a thaw has set in and the snow has gradually melted.
I was warned before moving to the Czech Republic, that I would have to get used to colder continental winters. But nothing could really prepare me for the weather Prague has experienced these last nearly seven weeks. Apparently, this has been the worst winter weather that the Czech Republic has had in 17 years. Towards the end of this long cold spell, even native Czechs were beginning to express their frustration with the extreme nature of the weather.
Despite the lying snow and freezing temperatures, Prague has continued to function. The city authorities have made major efforts to clear roads and pavements and public transport has kept operating with the minimal of delays. Particularly in popular pedestrianized areas in the city centre, snow has been cleared away by loading it into trucks and dumping it out of the way elsewhere. There are still massive heaps of snow along the banks of the River Vltava which are the result of this exercise.
Even in suburban streets, snow has been pushed into piles in order to leave a clear path along the pavement or road. It is mainly these heaps of snow that still have not melted, together with snow lying on north facing slopes which get very little sun.
When snow falls, everything looks beautiful and white. However, as it melts, dirt, litter and scattered street debris is revealed which look highly unattractive. In particular, many dog owners have got out of the habit of cleaning up after their dogs have obliged in the street believing that the snow will cover it up. Now the snow has melted, one has to walk quite carefully in places to avoid stepping in dog s–t. It will be interesting to observe how quickly all of this mess is cleared up.
As well as the marked improvement in the weather, last week was also notable for a number of other things. Both of us had our birthdays which has resulted in our joint ages now totalling one hundred! On the intervening day between our respective birthdays, I paid the last of several visits to the dentist for the fitting of a crown to replace one of my front teeth which I broke at the beginning of February.
Looking ahead, I have an early morning meeting on Wednesday 3rd March, following which I may be able to write a very interesting blog post. Watch this space!
