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Ordination in Vienna

Rev'd John Barker outside Christ Church, Vienna following his ordination as priest © Ricky Yates — Rev’d John Barker outside Christ Church, Vienna following his ordination as priest © Ricky Yates

On the evening of Sunday 30th March, I had the privilege of attending and participating in the ordination as priest, of my friend and ministerial colleague, John Barker. The ordination service took place at Christ Church, Vienna and meant that for the first time in my life, I was part of two services, on the same Sunday, in two different countries.

John was originally a licensed Reader in the Diocese of Durham and since his work for the European Commission brought him to continental Europe, he has helped in the Anglican Chaplaincies of Warsaw and Bucharest. I first met John in September 2008, at the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod meeting in Corfu which I attended, a week before moving from Oxfordshire to Prague. At that point, John had just moved from Bucharest to Skopje in Macedonia.

After establishing and leading the Anglican congregation in the Macedonian capital, last year John’s work took him to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. At the same time, he successfully completed further studies and was ordained deacon in the summer of 2013. In Yerevan, John has re-established an Anglican congregation there after a gap of ten years. Officially, he is the assistant curate of his and my Archdeacon Patrick Curran, the Chaplain of Christ Church Vienna. Therefore when plans for his ordination as priest in Yerevan ran into technical difficulties, the service was quickly and appropriately, moved to Vienna.

I only heard that the ordination service was happening, a week before the event. The official announcement wasn’t issued until twenty-four hours later! But knowing John and the fact that it would be very difficult for many other ordained Anglican priests to be present, I thought the least I could do was to try and see if I could attend.

Therefore on Sunday 30th March, I celebrated our regular 11.00 Eucharist in Prague as normal. Surprisingly, despite being the annoying Sunday when the clocks go forward by one hour, we had the largest congregation so far in 2014. But after a quick post-Eucharistic cup of coffee, I jumped into the car in order to drive to Vienna.

According to my internet research, the journey from central Prague to central Vienna, should take around four hours, providing there are no hold-ups en-route. In fact, the only mishap I had on my journey was finding myself on my first stretch of Austrian autobahn without a vignette. A quick detour into the first service area corrected this error, before falling foul of the österreichische Polizei 🙂

Leaving central Prague at 13.15, I reached central Vienna at about 17.00. But that is where I failed to pull off the autobahn at the correct intersection. I therefore spent the next forty-five minutes, weaving my way back through suburban Vienna, to 17-19 Jaurèsgasse, where Christ Church is located. Fortunately, with the service beginning at 18.00, I still made it with fifteen minutes to spare.

The ordaining bishop was David Hamid, the Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese in Europe. However, one of the great joys when someone is ordained priest, is that fellow priests are also invited to join in laying hands on the candidate, along with the bishop. I’m fairly sure that this was only the third time I’ve been privileged to do this, since my own ordination as priest nearly twenty-four years ago.

A reception held in the nearby Church Centre followed the service giving me the opportunity to speak in person with both my Archdeacon and Suffragan Bishop. Given the far flung nature of the Diocese in Europe, this is something that rarely happens more than once or twice a year!

It was inevitably a long and tiring day but I’m very glad I made the effort to travel and get to Vienna for the ordination service. And in the not too distant future, I do also hope to make the far longer journey to visit Yerevan and see John in action.

John with his wife Ella & daughter Laura, following the ordination service © Ricky Yates

Villa Tugendhat, Brno and the novel by Simon Mawer entitled ‘The Glass Room’

Villa Tugendhat in Brno, was designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van de Rohe and constructed between 1928 -1930 on a hillside slope overlooking the city centre. It was commissioned by the wealthy Jewish industrialist Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Greta and was their home for eight years before the couple, along with their children, were forced to flee to Switzerland following the dismembering of Czechoslovakia brought about by the Munich agreement of September 1938.

An icon of modern architecture, today Villa Tugendhat is considered one of the finest examples of functionalist design anywhere in the world. A revolutionary iron framework allowed Mies to dispense with supporting walls and massive plate glass windows give the extensive living space a wonderful feeling of space and light. The minimalist interior is famous for featuring an onyx wall and for using rare tropical hardwood.

Interior of Villa Tugendhat with onyx wall on the left © Ricky Yates

Sadly, during the Second World War and the communist era that followed, Villa Tugendhat suffered from inappropriate alterations and with internal materials being removed and used elsewhere. Some of the original wood panelling was found at Masaryk University, in a building used by the Gestapo as their Brno headquarters. In the latter years of communism, efforts were made to restore the building and a few years after the Velvet Revolution, it was opened as a museum under the auspices of Brno City Council.

In February 2010, a second major and expensive renovation project began with the aim of restoring Villa Tugendhat completely to its former glory. This work has included the creation of exact copies of the original furniture which was also designed by the architect Ludwig Mies van de Rohe. The building reopened to the public in March 2012.

An amazing sunset seen from inside Villa Tugendhat © Ricky Yates — An amazing sunset as seen from inside Villa Tugendhat © Ricky Yates

Since reopening, the number of people able to visit each day has been strictly limited in order to preserve the fabric of the building. The advice on the official website is to book an entrance ticket, at least one month in advance! Therefore I was greatly privileged to be able to visit Villa Tugendhat late one afternoon in September 2012, as a guest at a reception organised by the British Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic, without needing to book in advance! The photographs illustrating this post were all taken by me on that occasion.

'The Glass Room' by Simon Mawer — ‘The Glass Room’ by Simon Mawer

At that reception, the British novelist Simon Mawer, read some extracts from his novel, first published in 2009, entitled ‘The Glass Room’. It is a fictional story inspired by Villa Tugendhat, and takes it title from the extensive living space, with its plate glass windows and onyx wall, that is the central feature of the villa. I had been given a copy of the novel a few months previously and my visit inspired me to set about reading it, something I’ve since done twice, always planning to eventually write a blog post. My apologies that this post has taken eighteen months to gestate 🙂

The novel is both excellently conceived and extremely well written. What I particularly like about it is the very accurate retelling of the history of Central Europe over a sixty year period, against which the life stories of the various characters are played out. I very much agree with one reviewer who wrote, ‘Mawer creates a passionately detailed portrait of individuals struggling to snatch order and happiness from frightening, irrational times….a truly enjoyable read’.

As well as reading extracts from his novel, Simon Mawer also happily held an author signing session and so I got my copy suitably inscribed. The book is available from Amazon and has also been translated into several other languages, including Czech.

The author Simon Mawer signing a copy of his novel 'The Glass Room © Ricky Yates — The author Simon Mawer signing a copy of his novel ‘The Glass Room’ © Ricky Yates

My copy of 'The Glass Room', suitably inscribed by the author — My copy of ‘The Glass Room’, suitably inscribed by the author

Oscar’s 17th Birthday Party

Sherry with Mr Oscar and Šárek © Ricky Yates

On Friday 21st March, Senior Cat Oscar celebrated his seventeenth birthday! Aided by his tin openers, aka Ricky and Sybille, he invited a small number of his human friends, to attend a birthday party held in his honour, the following afternoon.

It was unfortunate that the Hellam family, who have previously looked after Oscar on a number of occasions when Sybille & I have been away, were unable to attend because of illness. However, Oscar’s two adult American friends, Karen and Sherry, were able to be present. Karen always refers to Oscar as ‘her buddy’, whilst Sherry always addresses him as ‘Mr Oscar’. Oscar very much approves of both designations 🙂

As was to be expected, most entertainment was provided by Šárek, the ginger kitten we adopted last August, who is rapidly becoming a fully-fledged teenager, with all the associated behavioural problems. For Sherry, it was her first opportunity to make Šárek’s acquaintance.

According to a chart on the wall at our local Veterinary Surgery, in human terms, Oscar is now aged somewhere between eighty-five and ninety years of age. So how much longer he will be with us is an open question. But whilst he did sleep through most of yesterday afternoon’s celebrations, he did happily pose for these accompanying photographs.

From l to r; Karen, Oscar & Sherry © Ricky Yates

The Church of St. Kunhuta, Nové Mesto na Morave

Following worship in Brno last Sunday evening, I stayed overnight with a family who are members of the congregation, in order on the next day, to meet up and have lunch with a Czech-British couple living near Olomouc. After a most enjoyable lunch, I headed back across the Vysocina (Highlands), in order to meet up with a Czech teacher of English, living and working in Žd’ár nad Sázavou, who has been using part of the text of this blog, as teaching material with his students.

Being ahead of myself time-wise for my meeting with the Czech teacher on Monday evening, I stopped off about ten kilometres short of Žd’ár nad Sázavou, to explore the small town of Nové Mesto na Morave. The town’s name literally means ‘New Town in Moravia’. But like many places bearing the name ‘Newtown’, nowadays it is many centuries old, having been founded in 1250.

Vratislavovo námestí is the main square in the town centre. Overlooking the square is the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to St. Kunhuta. The outside walls feature some remarkable sgraffito decoration with pictures illustrating Biblical stories, together with lives of the saints. Since visiting on Monday, I have discovered that these are the work of a local artist Karel Nemec, and date from the late 1920s.

Despite over forty years of Communist rule, all this wonderful artwork has survived and seems to have been renovated and restored fairly recently. I trust that the photographs that follow, illustrate what I mean, far better than my words.

Peter being rescued by Jesus when walking on the water © Ricky Yates

St. Francis preaching to the animals © Ricky Yates

The Ukraine crisis as seen from the Czech Republic

The Vltava River & Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

I hope my regular readers will forgive me for tackling a current political issue. However, as Ukraine is almost on the doorstep of the Czech Republic, I thought it appropriate to reflect on how the current crisis is seen here, and the impact the crisis may have in the near future.

Before proceeding any further, I should point out that it is not quite as close as one American TV news channel tried to illustrate. MSNBC successfully reinvented Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist on 31st December 1992, and showed it as bordering Ukraine as can be seen in this link. Just to confirm, whilst Slovakia does border Ukraine, the Czech Republic does not.

What may surprise many people is the fact that Ukrainians are by far the largest group of immigrants by nationality, living and working in the Czech Republic. According to the 2011 census, there were 118,000 Ukrainians resident here. The same census also registered 36,000 Russians as being present in the Czech Republic. However, there is quite a contrast in what each nationality group does here.

Most Ukrainians do what many relatively newly arrived immigrants do in so many countries around the world. They do the jobs that the host countries own citizens don’t want to do. In the Czech Republic this means that they work as building labourers, street cleaners or washing up and cleaning in bar-restaurants. Often they send home some of the money they earn, to support their families living back in Ukraine.

In contrast, most Russians living here are quite wealthy. As I’ve written previously, they are mainly responsible for parts of the more seedy side of life here such as Herna (gambling) Bars and prostitution. Of course there are Russians living in the Czech Republic, whose main purpose in being here is just to keep well clear of Putin. Inevitably, all Russians get tarred with the same brush, especially during this current crisis.

There is a general, considerable Czech dislike of Russians, because of past history. Czechs quite rightly, see little difference between the former communist-led USSR and present day Putin-led Russia. Both are seen as wanting to dominate and control the neighbouring states of Central and Eastern Europe, either by military or economic means – often a combination of both.

The current situation in the Crimea peninsula, has many echoes of the events of August 1968 here in the Czech Republic. By the will of the people, there is a change of government to one that is not to the liking of Moscow. So the troops are sent in to seek to reimpose Russian control and influence. In 1968, certain members of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party are supposed to have invited the Soviet Red Army to invade the country. In 2014, Putin’s government claim that former President Viktor Yanukovych, invited Russian troops to intervene in Ukraine, before he was deposed.

There are also wider historical echoes to the origins of the Second World War, with lands that are part of the present-day Czech Republic, being central to the dispute that eventually led to the outbreak of hostilities. As I’ve previously written, when the new nation of Czechoslovakia was established in 1918, the country included many people of German ethnic origin. According to a census taken in 1921, just over three million Germans lived in Czechoslovakia accounting for around 23% of the country’s total population. The areas where Germans formed a majority were known as Sudetenland and the people themselves as the Sudetendeutsche.

During the 1930s, Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, actively encouraged dissent among the Sudetendeutsche, hoping to provoke a reaction from the Czechoslovak authorities. The aim was to provide justification for military intervention, ostensibly to protect ethnic Germans. This is exactly what Putin-led Russia is doing presently in the Crimea peninsula. Putin claims he is only protecting ethnic Russians but at the same time, he is actively encouraging confrontation with Ukrainians, hoping to provide justification for his actions.

Hitler got his way without needing to forcibly invade. Because of the policy of appeasement adopted in Munich at the end of September 1938, by Neville Chamberlain and his French counterpart Édouard Daladier, Nazi Germany took control of the Sudetenland, without needing to fire a shot. To most Czech people and to me, the parallels are very apparent. Allowing a Putin-led Russia, to take control of the Crimea peninsula because it has a majority ethnic Russian population, will not solve the problem. Instead, it will embolden Putin, to seek to take control of further territory, with the ultimate goal of effectively re-establishing the USSR as an enlarged Russian Federation.

Whilst I thoroughly disapprove of the actions of President Putin, Western leaders, particularly those of the USA and the UK, have a serious problem. When either President Obama or Prime Minister Cameron, point out that Russia has invaded a sovereign country in breach of international law, Putin responds by pointing out that the USA and the UK did exactly the same thing, when they invaded Iraq in 2003. Neither side can claim to hold the moral high ground.

So far, both the United States and the European Union, have adopted a series of economic measures to try and force a change in Russian policy. Fortunately, the weather is helping them. The main economic lever the Russians have, is that much of Central and Eastern Europe relies on Russian natural gas and oil, for heating. But because of the most mild winter of recent memory, stockpiles are high and the winter is coming to an end. With the Russian rouble at an all time low, Putin may be forced to make concessions to keep Russia economically afloat. We shall see. All one can be certain of is that a period of great uncertainty lies ahead.