With the new King on Sunday 22nd March 2010. Photo ‘stolen’ from the Daily Telegraph
As I have mentioned previously, HM Queen Elizabeth II had reigned, until her death on Thursday 8th September 2022, for twenty days longer than I have been alive. She came to the throne on 6th February 1952 following the death of her father King George VI, and I was born on 26th February 1952. Along with over 90% of the current British population, the late Queen is the only head of state that I have ever known.
Therefore, the current wall to wall coverage by the British media and the outpouring of public grief and appreciation of her reign in the UK, is perfectly understandable. But as I have remarked previously at the time of both the wedding of William and Katherine, and at the more recent wedding of Harry and Meghan, the fascination with the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic is massive, as is the media coverage.
Last Thursday, the Queen’s death was officially announced at 18.30 in the UK, which is 19.30 here in the Czech Republic, just as the main news bulletin on TV Nova was beginning. Normally, the news bulletin lasts for forty minutes followed by ten minutes of sports news and a weather forecast. That night, the bulletin ran for a full hour with the only subject being the life and death of Queen Elizabeth II. Coverage of sport and the weather was completely dropped.
The extensive level of coverage has continued every day since last Thursday. On Sunday evening, the first twenty minutes of the news bulletin was given over to the events happening in Scotland that day. The first fifteen minutes of last night’s bulletin was all about the day’s events in the UK. I suspect TV programmes will be completely rescheduled or cancelled next Monday, in order to cover every possible aspect of the funeral.
On social media, I have previously questioned why there is so much interest in the British Royal Family here in the Czech Republic. After all, we are not even fellow members of of the EU following the stupidity of Brexit. Would Czech people really prefer having an hereditary head of state, even a British royal?
Whilst not wanting to be flippant in what is otherwise meant to be a serious post, I did enjoy a couple of the responses I got when I posed this question, I think at the time of the Harry and Meghan wedding. One, from a Czech friend, was that, ‘Anything would be better than Zeman!’, (the current President), a sentiment with which I would agree. The other, which came from an Austrian-American friend, was that, ‘There are a few Hapsburgs around who would be happy to take on the role’.
It will be interesting to see whether this same level of interest and fascination will continue now that Charles has come to the throne. I shall be watching and listening in the coming months. But what has already happened is that his name has suddenly changed. The Czech media has always insisted on calling the late Queen, Alžbeta II, the Czech form of Elizabeth. But her children were always referred to as Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward. But now Charles has become King, suddenly he is Karel III 😉
I intend to write another post regarding the late Queen being, ‘an agent for peace and reconciliation’, as my Diocesan Bishop has put it. But in the meantime, it has been fun telling Czech friends that, not only have I met the new King, I’ve also had to preach with Charles and Camilla in the congregation. Photographic evidence at the beginning of this post.
Sunday 17th March 2013 was a significant day for a number of reasons. Firstly it was Passion Sunday – the fifth Sunday of Lent, marking the beginning of Passiontide, the most important two weeks of the Christian year. It also featured the same set of Biblical readings and was the equivalent Sunday of three years previously in 2010, when I had to preach in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. This is something my new Archbishop only did for the first time this past week 🙂
But Sunday 17th March was also very significant for Matthew, a Scottish member of the St. Clement’s congregation, as it was the occasion when he preached his first ever sermon. Matthew is currently exploring a possible vocation to train for ordained ministry within the Church of England. He has already successfully jumped through several initial hoops, including a long interview with the Vocations Advisor for the Eastern Archdeaconry of the Diocese in Europe, and attending an intensive Vocations Weekend in London at the end of January. But in advance of a critical long interview with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands (DDO) in London in early April, he is required to have preached a sermon, the text of which needs to be submitted to the DDO in advance of the interview.
Sunday 17th March both suited Matthew and me as being the occasion for preaching his first sermon. But what I did not initially realise was that the date is also St. Patrick’s Day. Therefore, I was suitably ribbed by my Irish Reader Jack Noonan, for inviting a Scotsman to preach on St. Patrick’s Day 🙂 However, in a show of Celtic solidarity, Matthew chose to wear his kilt in order to ‘to show love and to honour those in our congregation who hail from Ireland or those who have Irish ancestry’, as he so generously put it in the opening lines of his sermon.
The sermon was both well prepared and very well delivered. Matthew concentrated on the Gospel reading set for the day from John 12. 1-8, which tells of how Mary, the sister of Martha & Lazarus, anointed Jesus’ feet with half a litre of expensive perfume whilst he was visiting their home in Bethany. You can listen to and/or read the text of the sermon by following this link to our Church website.
Matthew teaches English to a variety of Czech adults in their workplaces. Having told his students what he was doing, quite a number asked if they could attend. Their reasons for doing so varied I’m sure, ranging from wanting to hear their English teacher preach in a Church service, to experiencing English-language Anglican worship, and to seeing Matthew in his kilt. And the feedback from the students when Matthew next met with them the following day, was fascinating to say the least.
The Czech students fell into two groups. There were the atheists who, in reality, are often more agnostic rather than atheist. They sat together as a small group in the pews near the back of the Church. They told Matthew that they found the service, ‘very nice indeed’. Their greatest surprise was the lack of fancy gold decoration within the Church building, in contrast to the many overly decorated baroque Roman Catholic Churches that you find throughout Prague. One student called it, ‘a Church and service for poor people’ and further expressed his view that, ‘this is what the Church should be about’. Here I hear echoes of the first statements by the newly elected Pope Francis I. Yet it is his Church that owns all these highly decorated buildings which so easily send out the wrong message as to what Christianity is all about. It will be interesting to see how he sets about grasping that nettle.
The other group were practising Roman Catholics who, unlike most Anglicans, sat in the pews right at the front of the Church 🙂 Their response was one I’ve heard many times from Roman Catholics after attending an Anglican Eucharist for the first time – how very similar our liturgy is in its wording and structure, to the Roman Catholic mass. As I have frequently had to explain, when revising and updating their respective liturgies, both Roman Catholics & Anglicans have gone back to the writings of Justin Martyr & Hippolytus, who describe the pattern of the Eucharist as it was celebrated in the Christian Church of the second & third centuries AD.
Their other reaction was one that both pleases but also saddens me. What struck them was how personal (one to one) the service was with my words of welcome to congregation at the beginning, and with the announcements before the final hymn at the end. They said this was really amazing as their own church is very ‘official’ as they described it and none of this would ever happen during their mass. There is almost a sense of their clergy being uncaring and conducting the service, ‘with no room for humility or humour’.
Whilst it is nice to be complimented, it does sadden me that even people who attend Christian worship regularly, still find their own Church uncaring and their clergy lacking warmth and humility. All of this re-echoed what I heard from various Czech young people a year ago, after conducting a Czech-American wedding in March 2012. To most Czech people, the Christian Church, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, is cold and unwelcoming and not a good advert for the Christian faith.
Not only did these Czech people, both those with faith & those of a more agnostic train of thought, find our worship warm and welcoming, they also found individual members of the congregation warm and welcoming too. They expressed their appreciation as to how so many people went out of their way to talk with them and invite them across the road to Coffee Hour after the service. I am both pleased and thankful that the St. Clement’s congregation has been such a good example of what a Christian community should be – showing something of the love and compassion of Jesus Christ to those who have come to worship with us for the first time.
At our Eucharist yesterday – Palm Sunday, we had twenty three visitors of a different kind join us for worship. They were the Chapel Choir and Organist of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. They wonderfully enhanced our worship, singing a setting by Josef Rheinberger, of Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, together with an Introit and a Communion Anthem. Whilst I am a great believer in the whole congregation joining in singing the musical parts of the liturgy, there is a case for sometimes just sitting or standing quietly and letting those gifted by God with great voices and instrumental skills, sing and play in praise of God.
The choir also gave a great lead to our congregational hymns, including ‘All glory, laud and honour, to thee Redeemer King’, ‘Ride on, ride on in majesty’, and my own favourite for Passiontide and Holy Week, ‘My song is love unknown’. As a member of the congregation remarked to me in an email on Sunday evening, ‘As for the music…..Wow!’ It really was a great beginning to once more marking Holy Week before celebrating the joys of Easter Day.
When the ‘Official group from the UK’ visited St. Clement’s Church on Saturday 16th January 2010 in order to begin planning the details of this Royal Visit, I was asked what form our normal 11am Sunday service took. I replied that, as it was the only service we had on a Sunday, it was a service of Holy Communion or ‘Sung Eucharist’ as we normally call it. I was then asked how long the service lasted and I replied that it was normally around an hour and a quarter.
The emphasis of all our discussions was the desire that the Royal Couple should be able to join with the regular congregation for their normal Sunday service. However, I was asked whether, because of certain timetabling constraints, I could keep the service to about an hour and I gave the assurance that, with a little bit of judicious trimming it would be perfectly possible. It was on this basis that I planned the liturgy for the day together with an appropriate emphasis on it being Passion Sunday.
Therefore, it came as a considerable disappointment when in the late afternoon of Thursday 11th March, I received a phone call asking that, because of time constraints, the Church service should be non-eucharistic. It was further suggested that in order for me to fulfil the requirements of Canon Law, the ‘Ministry of the Sacrament’ could then follow shortly afterwards as a separate service for all who wanted to stay on and receive Communion.
Therefore the service attended by our Royal Visitors was a Service of the Word but it included all the elements that would have been in our normal Sung Eucharist from the beginning of the service stopping short of the Peace. We had the set Bible Readings, four hymns, Gerry led our Intercessions and I preached. And as it was, we completed all of this in just over forty-five minutes,
In the end, everybody seemed to enjoy both services. Prince Charles in particular obviously enjoyed the hymns. And the vast majority of people stayed after the Royal Party departed, for the celebration of the Eucharist. Many of them also came on to Coffee Hour in Klimentská 18 including all of the Dutch young people.
I complained in a previous post about the lack of coverage of the Royal Visit to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic by the BBC in particular, as well as by much of the British media. However, with great delight Gerry Turner phoned me this morning alert me to this article and photograph that has appeared in this morning’s ‘Daily Telegraph’. I have to say that it is a ‘first’ for me to have my photo appear in a British national newspaper.
As always, one can pick holes in what the journalist has reported. To say in the sub-title, that we were joined by two ‘unexpected worshippers’, is somewhat exaggerated. I’ve known for two months and the whole congregation has known for over two weeks that our Royal Visitors were coming. The congregation is far from being just ‘British and American ex-pats’. Each Sunday, the number of nationalities in the congregation always runs into double figures. The Czech Republic always likes to be described as being part of ‘Central Europe’ rather than ‘Eastern Europe’. And our Sunday School is for children who are 4+ and upwards in age not ‘three and four-year-olds’.
As for the closing quote, Gerry agrees he used the word ‘chuffed’ though not exactly in the manner that it is reported. However, it certainly true, that the Americans who rebelled against and kicked out Prince Charles’ forbears, were some of people most thrilled by the presence of our Royal Visitors at St. Clements last Sunday!
Further to my previous posts entitled ‘A forthcoming Royal visit’, ‘Three days to go…….’ and ‘Only 12 hours to go…..’, today was the big day when, as part of their official visit to the Czech Republic, Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, joined the regular St. Clement’s Church congregation for our Sunday morning worship.
I set the alarm for 6am, just to be sure I had plenty of time to have a shower, eat breakfast and collect everything together, ready to travel into the city centre. In fact, the four-legged alarm clock called Oscar, landed on my bed before 6 am. I think he knew I had to get up early!
The 9.34am Number 8 tram duly carried Sybille and I from Podbaba to Dlouhá Trída in the 18 minutes it was scheduled to do, meaning that we arrived outside of the Church at about 9.55am, more than an hour before the Royal Party was due to arrive. However, the streets around the Church were completely clear of cars and numerous policemen were already patrolling. Only when I pointed to my clerical collar was I allowed to walk across the road and stand nearer to the Church. This rather confirmed my worst fears that the security concerns of the Czech police might prevent some regular members of the congregation actually getting to Church.
Our host congregation, the Ceskobratrské Cíckve Evangelické /the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, were having their normal 9.30am service. As I stood near the door I could hear their hymn singing and the voice of Pastor Eva Halamová. However, Pastor Eva had previously promised that she would try and shorten their service a little and, true to her word, they finished at 10.15am, a full 10-15 minutes earlier than normal. As I entered the Church, Pastor Eva and I exchanged a hug as I thanked her for her cooperation and she wished me well for our service.
I was followed into Church by several Czech security personnel and a couple of sniffer dogs as the whole premises were carefully searched to see anything untoward could be found. Only Churchwarden Gerry Turner, Sacristan Marshall Johnson and Welcomers Peter Morpuss and Amanda Neill, were allowed in until the search was completed.
Once the congregation were allowed in, the Church began to fill rapidly. It was good to see that many of the regular congregation had heeded my instructions and had come to Church in good time rather than dashing in at the last minute. And there were quite a number of somewhat unfamiliar faces who had obviously mainly come to see our Royal Visitors though many were friends and family of regular members of the congregation.
I was fortunately in the vestry when my mobile phone rang at 10.35am. It was Sher, an American member of the congregation saying that she and several other people were across the street from the Church but were being prevented from getting to Church by the police. I charged down the aisle still talking on my phone and was very helpfully followed by Gerry Turner and a couple of British diplomats from the Embassy. Between us we sorted things out and hopefully nobody who wanted to come to Church in the normal way was prevented from doing so.
However, one of my most abiding memories of today will be of an angry Gerry Turner telling a Czech policeman in no uncertain terms in Czech, that he was behaving like the police used to during the latter years of the Communist regime! Gerry can speak from experience having lived in Prague for ten years during the Communist era. I don’t think the policeman concerned was quite expecting that!
By 10.50am, the Church was virtually full with only the reserved pews empty and the rarely used seats along the side walls also occupied. Sitting in many of these were a group of over twenty young people who I assumed had just come to see our Royal Visitors. My assumption proved to be completely wrong. They were a group of young Dutch Christians who had taken part in a competition which involved travelling in pairs and hitchhiking from Utrecht to Prague. They came to Church to worship totally unaware that we were expecting special guests!
Soon after 10.50am, I spoke to the congregation reminding them of the note in the front of the Order of Service about turning off mobile phones and that no photography or videoing of any of the service was allowed. I then went to the main door to wait with Gerry Turner, for the arrival of the Royal Party.
We stood and waited opposite a large group of accredited press photographers which included Sybille. There were quite a large number of people gathered to watch on the far side of the street and many locals looking out on proceedings from the windows of the surrounding apartment buildings.
Right on time at 11am, preceded by numerous police cars all with blue lights flashing, the Royal Party arrived. The accompanying photographs taken by Sybille, illustrate the event far better than my written words.
Once I had escorted the Royal Party to their pew, the service started and, I am very pleased to say, ran remarkably smoothly. But more of that in my next blog post…….
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.
