St Clement’s Church

A Wedding and a Baptism

Last weekend, I had the privilege of officiating at two ‘occasional offices’, to use the term by which baptisms, weddings and funerals, are collectively known within the Anglican Church. On the afternoon of Saturday 7th September in Prague, I conducted my second wedding of 2013, whilst on the evening of Sunday 8th September, I conducted my first-ever baptism in Brno.

Unlike my earlier wedding this year, this second wedding took place in our worshipping home in Prague – Kostel sv Kliment/St. Clement’s Church. This has several major advantages from my point of view, not the least being that getting there was far less problematic than travelling to Bouzov Castle 🙂

As I have frequently written and said previously, the geography of a building, does impact on the way a wedding is conducted. As this wedding was the sixth wedding that I have conducted in St. Clement’s Church, I was thankfully far more at ease than normal. My only real concern as always, was being sure I had everything I needed either with me, or already in the Church, before setting out from the Chaplaincy Flat.

I got to Church more than an hour before the marriage service was due to begin, mainly to allow Larry the organist, plenty of time to practice all the music he was to play, well before the arrival of any of the guests. But it also allowed me to get the Church ready without any undue haste, and then to take the picture above.

Here is a close up of the table that I set up in the chancel apse where the necessary paperwork is completed. Rather than signing two marriage registers, as would be the case under the law of England and Wales, instead a four page marriage protokol has to be signed. But just like in England and Wales, the protokol has to be signed by the couple, as well as by two adult witnesses, and by me as the officiant. However, it being the Czech Republic, it also most importantly, needs to be stamped!

As you can see, I have pen, protokol and stamp in place, together with an Osvedcení, saying that the couple have fulfilled all the legal requirements allowing a religious marriage to take place, and an annotated protokol, to remind me as to who needs to sign where, to ensure I do not foul up anything!

Maria & David with me, following their wedding © Ricky Yates

The happy couple were David, an Englishman, and Maria, an American citizen from Puerto Rico. Both have lived in Prague for a number of years and for both, it was their second marriage. The supportive congregation was made up of family members, some of whom had specially flown in from the USA and the UK for the occasion, together with their friends, a mixture of expats and English-speaking Czechs. I could tell that there were a large number of expats present, by the laughter that followed my usual quip of saying, “This is the most important part of a Czech wedding ceremony”, followed by very firmly stamping the protokol 🙂

Sunday evening in Brno was a very special occasion, when I baptised Amelie Gabriela, the daughter and first child of Philip and Lenka Read, whose wedding I conducted in September 2010. This was the first-ever baptism for the Brno congregation since I started conducting regular monthly services there in January 2012. As I wrote in my earlier post in April, Phil and Lenka are having a house built just south of Brno, with a view of moving there permanently from England, later this year. Phil had two job interviews lined up for this week and I’m hoping to hear of a successful outcome, very soon.

Phil, Lenka & Amelie with me. the words in Czech on the wall behind us say 'God is love' © Ricky Yates — Phil, Lenka & Amelie with me. The words in Czech on the wall behind us say ‘God is love’ © Ricky Yates

Just like the wedding the previous day, my greatest fear was not having with me in Brno, everything I needed for the baptism service. When you are more than 200 km from home, it isn’t possible to pop back and pick up something you forgot! I also had the logistical problem of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church that we use for our Brno services, not having a font! I overcame this problem, by having a glass bowl on the altar, which can be seen on the right of this photograph.

Amelie's amazing baptism cake © Ricky Yates — Amelie’s amazing baptism cake © Ricky Yates

After worship in Brno, we always share fellowship over refreshments. Last Sunday, our refreshments included large helpings of this amazing cake, made especially to celebrate Amelie’s baptism. Supporters of the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS), will also notice that I was busy distributing copies of ICS News and Prayer Diary and the recent Prayer Diary supplement. The financial and prayerful support of ICS has been a major factor in the establishment of the Brno congregation.

Ricky has returned to Rícky

Ricky at Rícky v Orlických horách © Ricky Yates

I am writing this, sitting in the bar/dining room/lounge of Hotel Konšel, located in the small settlement that bears my name, Rícky v Orlických horách. Yes, after our short, very snowbound visit in early April this year, Ricky has returned to Rícky 🙂

This time, Sybille and I are here, hoping to spend the first eight days of two weeks of my annual leave, enjoying a walking holiday in the Orlické hory. And, if the hotel’s slightly dodgy wifi internet connection had allowed me, I would have posted this on the evening of Wednesday 26th June, as my first ever blogpost not posted from my office in the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague.

We arrived here on the afternoon of Monday 24th June, following a good week in which several positive things occurred.

On Thursday 20th June, TelefonicaO2 finally reconnected our landline phone and internet access at the Chaplaincy Flat, a few hours short of seventeen days from when it ceased to function. To once more have reliable internet access with a reasonable download speed, was a welcome relief for which we are both very thankful. Of course, now we are away from the Chaplaincy Flat, internet connections have once more become a little more intermittent 🙁

The same day, I drove out to Horažd’ovice, to meet up with my good friend Adrian Blank, in order to help me get the ‘Carly’ through its STK, the equivalent of a British MOT Test. It did eventually get through but, at the expense of two new front tyres and some work to re-align the front wheels. Adrian reckons, probably quite rightly, that hitting a few Czech potholes was probably the cause of the problem. But at least the ‘Carly’ is now deemed fit to be driven on Czech roads for another two years.

The third thing of note was our worship and post-services activities last Sunday. Not only was our Sung Eucharist extremely well attended, we also had the privilege of having a guest preacher, Rev’d Dr Peter Walker. Peter and I trained for ordained ministry together at Wycliffe Hall, between 1987-1989. After serving his title in a parish in Kent, Peter has had an academic career, including a spell back at Wycliffe on the teaching staff. He is now Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. His challenging sermon, which has now been uploaded to our Church website, was widely appreciated by the congregation.

Churchwarden Richard York with Rev'd Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates — Churchwarden Richard York with Rev’d Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates

Following worship, many of us migrated to the nearby park on Lannova, a street that lies between the Church and the Vltava River, for our annual summer Picnic-in-the-Park. The picnic is always a good opportunity for fun & fellowship before many in the congregation are often away from Prague for several weeks, visiting family and friends in their home countries. Peter and his wife Georgie were able to join us for the picnic and very much enjoyed meeting and talking to members of the St. Clement’s congregation.

Last week was also notable for some very hot and sticky weather, in stark contrast to all of the rain earlier in the month, which was responsible for the very serious flooding in Prague and elsewhere in the western half of the Czech Republic. Fortunately the weather turned a little cooler at the weekend, but still dry except for a few spots of rain – ideal conditions for our picnic. Ideal weather, so I thought, for our walking holiday commencing the next day.

Unfortunately, Monday 24th June dawned cold, grey and with light rain. And when we set out late that morning on the Prague-Hradec Králové motorway, we drove through a positive downpour! However, just before reaching Rícky some three hours later, the rain stopped, allowing us an enjoyable short circular walk around the somewhat scattered settlement, after we had checked into the hotel.

But that dry couple of hours proved illusory. It was followed by forty-eight hours of continuous rain, meaning a couple of expeditions in the car but no walking in the hills. The rain finally stopped on Wednesday evening, so our walking holiday in the Orlické hory finally began today. Watch this space!

Prague Floods – June 2013

This was written and should have been posted late in the evening of Monday 3rd June. However, as I was uploading the photographs, the internet connection to the Chaplaincy Flat died, along with the landline phone. Nearly four days later, we are still without internet or phone. Our provider O2, tells us in a recorded message that they have ‘technical issues in our area’, with no information as to when these ‘technical issues’ will be resolved. We assume that floodwater has got into their system somewhere. I have finally managed to complete this post using the wifi connection in Bar-Restaurace U Topolu whilst eating my lunch 🙂

Don't try walking or parking your car here © Ricky Yates — Don’t try walking or parking your car here © Ricky Yates

I have previously written on this blog, about flooding in Prague. I wrote that post from a historical perspective and illustrated it with some photographs of flood level markers that can be found on several buildings near to the Vltava River, as flows through the centre of Prague. At the end of my post, I remarked that, as serious flooding seems to have occurred with one hundred year intervals, and the last very serious floods were in 2002, I didn’t expect there to be another occurrence during my lifetime. That was until the events of the past few days.

As well as being cold and miserable, as the weather has been throughout most of May, during the last week it has also been raining pretty consistently too. The inevitable consequence has been a rise in river levels which reached dangerous heights over the past forty-eight hours. This was the scene that greeted us after we walked down to the side of the Vltava after Church on Sunday morning. Normally you can walk along here and there is reserved parking for customers of the Botel Albatross in the distance – hence the ‘P’ sign sticking out of the water.

Flooded road underpass at Podbaba © Ricky Yates

Just beyond the Podbaba tram terminus, on our way home to the Chaplaincy Flat, we were greeted with this view, with the main road completely blocked because of flooding in the underpass beneath the Prague-Dresden railway line. I should add that this flooding has got considerably deeper in the past twenty-four hours.

Flood defences erected on Kampa Island as seen from Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

We returned to the city centre later on Sunday afternoon, to get an idea of how severe the flooding was likely to be. At that point in time, it was still possible to walk across Charles Bridge from where I took this photograph which shows the first flood defences having already been erected on Kampa Island. In the foreground, one of the wooden barriers which are meant to protect the buttresses of the bridge, is almost completely submerged.

The photographs that follow were taken by me this morning, Monday 3rd June. I hope they help to illustrate the flood situation as it currently is. Obviously, the situation is fluid if you will excuse my bad pun.

Malostranská Metro Station surrounded by flood barriers © Ricky Yates

Whilst we were travelling back into the centre of Prague on Sunday afternoon, we heard (and understood !!!) an announcement in Czech, that a a sizeable section of the Metro was being closed until further notice. Basically, any station near the Vltava River has been closed, with flood barriers erected around the entrance, to try to prevent any part of the system being inundated, as here at Malostranská.

Some indication of the strength of flow in the Vltava.

The Kafka Museum at risk of being inundated © Ricky Yates

Flood defences and Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

Flood defences were in place all alongside the most vulnerable parts of the historic city centre.

Protecting the antique shop with sandbags © Ricky Yates

And around the corner, they were busy filling more sandbags!

Charles Bridge without tourists! © Ricky Yates

Whilst we had been able to walk across Charles Bridge on Sunday afternoon, later that evening, it was closed to the public. Here the fire service, aided by a mobile crane, are trying to remove large trees and other debris building up against the bridge parapets.

Flood defences cannot save these buildings adjacent to Charles Bridge © Ricky Yates

Some buildings that are so close to the Vltava cannot be protected from flooding such as these in the photograph above or this riverside bar in the photograph below.

Nor will boats be mooring here for sometime to come!

Don't try mooring here for a few days © Ricky Yates — Don’t try mooring here for a few days © Ricky Yates

Trinity Sunday

Fractal image of the Holy Trinity © Sybille Yates

‘The average Christian is as well equipped to meet an aggressive atheist or agnostic as a boy with a peashooter is to meet a tank’. So wrote my former Diocesan Bishop, Rt Rev’d John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford. I am sure that comment could be a deemed a little unfair by some Christians but, when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, I fear that in most cases, Bishop John is probably right. For the doctrine of the Trinity is one that Christians know they ought to believe, but which many will tell you is one they have not, or cannot, fully grasp, let alone adequately explain.

Today, the first Sunday after the Feast of Pentecost, is always kept as Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the Christian calendar dedicated to a doctrine. It is the annual occasion when I have to preach, and hopefully explain, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. How God is revealed as Creator and Father; took human form in the person of Jesus, the Word made flesh; and is at work in the world today by the person and power of the Holy Spirit who indwells each believer. Three persons yet, one God!

How well I succeeded in my task, I’ll leave to those who heard me preach today. Or you can judge for yourself as my sermon has now been uploaded to our Church website and you can listen to it by clicking on this link. However, I am always reassured by the quotation, attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo – ‘If you can understand it, it isn’t God’. It is a reminder that, by his very being and nature, the infinite Triune God is beyond our finite human understanding.

One of things I do enjoy about Trinity Sunday, is the opportunity it gives to sing some of the many wonderful Trinitarian hymns which are part of English hymnology. So it was that today we sang, ‘Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty’, ‘Thou, whose almighty word’ and the more recent twentieth century hymn, ‘Father, Lord of all creation’. But we ended with what is my favourite Trinitarian hymn – ‘We give immortal praise’, by the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century hymn writer, Isaac Watts.

The hymn has four verses, the first three of which are individually addressed to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. It is normally sung to the tune, ‘Croft’s 136th’, an organ rendition of which can be listened to here.

But the fourth and last verse, which gives praise to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, expresses both praise, but also the limits of our human understanding.

Almighty God, to thee

be endless honours done,

the undivided Three,

and the mysterious One:

where reason fails

with all her powers,

there faith prevails,

and love adores.

This side of heaven, we will never fully understand the Triune God. But where reason fails, faith does prevail, and love does adore.

Passion Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day and Palm Sunday

Matthew reading the Gospel in advance of preaching on Passion Sunday © Sybille Yates

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.