By Ricky, on September 27th, 2010
Christ Church, Vienna © Ricky Yates
On Thursday 16th September, only a week after our previous trip, we once more drove the length of the Prague – Brno motorway. This time we then headed further south over the border into Austria and travelled onwards to Vienna in order to attend the annual meeting of our Eastern Archdeaconry Synod.
As I’ve blogged previously, St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague is part of the Church of England’s forty fourth diocese, the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. As with the other 43 dioceses that make up the Church of England, the Diocese in Europe is divided into Archdeaconries – in our case, into seven Archdeaconries. Even the smallest of these, the Archdeaconry of Switzerland, covers the whole of one country. And Prague belongs to the largest of the seven, the Eastern Archdeaconry, which consists of . . . → Read More: The Eastern Archdeaconry Synod in Vienna
By Ricky, on January 31st, 2010
Left to right; Rev'd Petr Jan Vinš, Archdeacon Patrick Curran and me © Sybille Yates
One of the things anyone taking on being an Anglican Chaplain in the Diocese in Europe is warned about, is the fact that you will be working in relative isolation. In England, most Anglican clergy meet their nearby colleagues at regular meetings of the Deanery Clergy Chapter. These meetings provide an opportunity for mutual help and support as well as being a safe environment in which to sound off about difficult parishioners! Likewise, if you want to talk an issue over with your bishop or archdeacon, they are usually no more than a one hour journey away and a meeting can be easily organised.
Here in Prague, my nearest Anglican colleagues are in Warsaw to the north, Budapest to the east and Vienna to the south-east. As I have blogged previously, I . . . → Read More: A visit from the Archdeacon
By Ricky, on December 10th, 2009 Galata Tower, Istanbul from the Bosphorus © Ricky Yates. Christ Church Anglican Church is located in a street leading off the square that surrounds the Galata Tower.
After our three nights in Cappadocia, we then began our return journey to Prague. On Saturday 17th October, we drove around 750 km from Ürgüp to the outskirts of Ankara where we joined the motorway that then took us all the way to Istanbul. As we approached the edge of the Istanbul conurbation, the fine dry and very warm weather we had experienced throughout our time in Turkey, suddenly broke as we drove into an extremely heavy thunderstorm.
We stayed for two nights in Istanbul with a young Turkish couple who we had first met when they couchsurfed with us in Prague earlier in the year in June. In Istanbul, we had our first experience of being . . . → Read More: Farewell to Turkey
By Ricky, on November 5th, 2009 The Fountain of Trajan, Ephesus © Ricky Yates
Although the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod meeting officially ended with the Eucharist and Ordination Service on the morning of Sunday 11th October, most synod members stayed on for a Sunday afternoon outing and guided tour to the Greco-Roman remains of the city of Ephesus some 50 miles/80 km south of Izmir. Although we had originally booked to go on the coach with everyone else, as we didn’t wish to return to Izmir late on Sunday evening, we instead followed the coach in our car.
Pillars in front of Municipal House, Ephesus © Ricky Yates
I had previously visited Ephesus nearly 35 years ago in April 1975 and wondered how different it would be from how I remembered it. The most obvious contrast was the weather. My first visit took place on a cool day, under dark cloudy skies and . . . → Read More: Ephesus
By Ricky, on November 4th, 2009
The seafront Izmir, Turkey © Ricky Yates
The 2009 meeting of the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod of the Diocese in Europe took place in the Kaya Prestige Hotel, Izmir, between 17.00 on Thursday 8th October until mid-afternoon on Saturday 10th October. We met in a large conference room on the second floor of the hotel and were able to set up the furniture so that one part was suitable for worship whilst the other could be used for listening to our speakers and for round-table discussion. However, like so many hotel conference rooms, there were no windows through which daylight might appear so it was good to be able to get out and walk around the city on the Friday afternoon during a two-hour break in proceedings.
In our Eucharist on Friday morning, we remembered Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna who was martyred for his faith c155 . . . → Read More: The Eastern Archdeaconry Synod in Izmir
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