Canterbury

by Nan Cobbey
Lambeth Conference Communications

With gold and blue banners snapping in the breeze, school children waving and the Canterbury Cathedral's 14-bell peal tolling, the 13th Lambeth Conference officially opened Sunday morning as 750 cassock-clad bishops processed into the cathedral to celebrate the first Eucharist of their three-week gathering.

The bishops, representing 37 provinces of the international Anglican Communion, entered through the historic western portal and continued up the 215-foot nave to the music of organ and the Cathedral choir of men and boys. Forty minutes elapsed before the double line of magenta-cassocked bishops, accompanied by representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council, and several dozen ecumenical and other guests, found their seats in the 900-year-old mother church of the Anglican Communion. They were all in place, however, by the time His Royal Highness Charles, the Prince of Wales, arrived and was escorted with a trumpet fanfare to his seat in the quire.

In an echo of the church's recent past, two former Archbishops of Canterbury, Lord Coggan and Lord Runcie, joined the procession. For the first time since the conference began in 1867, 11 women bishops were part of the procession, and African bishops, numbering 224, surpassed every other continental group. North America sent 180 bishops to the conference, which is held only once every 10 years, while the United Kingdom sent about 140.

Colorful service draws on varied cultures

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey greeted his international congregation with the Swahili words "Bwana akae nanyi" (The Lord be with you) and heard in reply "Akae nawe pia" (And also with you) from a responsive chorus of more than 2,000 voices. No seat in the Cathedral was vacant. Some of the faithful stood, listening, from the Cathedral precincts or waited with the curious in the narrow, cobbled streets of this ancient walled city near England's southeast coast.

The tone set by the Swahili greeting continued throughout what became an increasingly exuberant celebration of the communion's burgeoning and varied family of 73 million members spread over more than 160 nations. Trumpets, drums, dance, bells and a cacophony of languages in prayer and praise expressed a rare cultural richness. Flowing pink, orange and blue silk saris, stiff-peaked African cotton headwraps, straw hats frothy with feathers, even one shining emerald cope made for Archbishop Andrew Mya Han of the Church of the Province of Myanmar by members of his Mothers' Union, filled the cathedral with color.

Panamanian liturgical dancers from the London-based Victor Hugo Dance Troupe swept through the quire and into the nave with a flipping of blue, green, peach and purple ribbons, and a swirl of white cotton dresses. Like great white rhythmic birds spreading their wings, they led the procession for the reading of the Gospel. With the help of their dancing percussionists, they created a great swell of sound and joy, teasing the congregation into spontaneous applause.

The wealth of cultural expression included the swaying rhythms of South Africa, the poignancy of African-American spirituals, and melodious songs and hymns from England, Argentina, Korea and Russian Orthodox traditions. As participants followed the multi-lingual service booklet, some sang in Spanish, others in French, many in Swahili. One chorus printed in Zulu moved many to sway enthusiastically to its lively beat.

Bishop French Chang Him of the Diocese of the Seychelles in the Province of the Indian Ocean, and Bishop Chilton Knudsen of the Diocese of Maine in the United States, led the intercessions in both French and English. Bishop John Sentamu of Stepney in England, a former Ugandan high court judge, beat a brightly painted four-foot Ugandan "wise man's drum" as he sang a Kenyan version of the Gloria. Bible readings were read in Portuguese and Arabic.

Unity of the church a theme

The morning's unspoken theme became clear as choir and congregation came to the final stanza of the new "Lambeth Hymn" written for the conference. Composed by Timothy Dudley Smith, evangelical hymn writer and retired suffragan bishop of Norwich in England, and sung at the peace, the song implored God to "renew, restore, unite, inspire the Church that bears your Name . . . . O grant us grace to heed your call and in that Name be one."

The liturgy, a poignant Kenyan text, slid from English to Swahili and back, challenging the international congregation to listen carefully for meaning:

"Is the Father with us?"
He is. . . .

So began the Prayer of Thanksgiving. The call and response continued, gaining strength in both languages as they were spoken sometimes simultaneously, sometimes alternately. When the words "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again" were followed by "We have died. We will rise together. We will live together," some said they found their voices catching. Hearing a multitude of tongues recite the Lord's Prayer in different languages also offered a particularly stirring reflection of the conference's aim to find unity in diversity.

In his sermon, Bishop Simon E. Chiwanga of the Diocese of Mpwapwa in the Church in the Church in the Province of Tanzania, and chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council, reminded his hearers about the sacred place in which they sat, and of how the Cathedral symbolized common roots of costly witness. He did not refer to Saint Thomas Becket whose martyrdom in the cathedral in 1170 turned it into a place of pilgrimage, but he did call the gathered flock "a pilgrim people," and told the leaders of his 70-million member church how vital they are to a world hungry for meaning.

Pointing to the "recent tragic loss of the Roman Catholic bishop of Pakistan," the result of Christian-Islamic tensions, as well as tribal conflicts in Africa, violence in Northern Ireland and escalating terrorism around the world, he declared that many in the communion face "both physical and spiritual deprivation."

A call for Christ-like lives

He challenged the church to be more Christ-like in mission, and not to allow bitterness, anger or disharmony to distort "its image of a living gospel." It is in "mission in the world that we grow into Christ's likeness," he said. "Evangelism must remain our guiding principle . . . . We are called to be Christ-like in our missionary drive."

Bishop Chiwanga proclaimed the Anglican Communion's commitment to the cause of canceling international debt "a powerful witness of our following Jesus into the midst of the disadvantaged."

Finally, he offered his fellow leaders a little instruction in interpretive charity, which he defined as "the ability to apply the most loving interpretation to actions and opinions of others . . . listening to one another in love. It demands that we restrain our impulse to start formulating our response before the other has finished what they are saying."

Responding to concerns that the conference may by marred by sharp disagreements over controversial issues, such as homosexuality and the ordination of women, Bishop Chiwanga stressed the need for the bishops to model such charity.

"It is difficult, I know," he said, "[and it] calls us to persevere with the discomfort of thoughtful silence and to use that time of silence to prepare a loving response to what we have heard . . . . Interpretive charity challenges us to avoid demeaning labels that we are so eager to apply to our opponents."

When the service ended, and the bishops and their wives strode from the stone interior into a bright sunny noon to be greeted by school children from all 15 of the Diocese of Canterbury's church schools, also rushing to their sides came the journalists, bearing boom mikes and cameras.

The conference had begun.