I had a poor night's sleep, disturbed by the need to empty my bladder half a dozen times. So unpleasant. The sun shone briefly at first light, then the sky clouded over. It's the feast of Saints Simon and Jude today, two of the Twelve called by Jesus, about whom little is known. It's an occasion of reminiscence for me, reaching back to my student days in Bristol.
In Churchill Hall of residence, one of my fellow students was Voulie Maroulis, a Greek Cypriot lad from Cardiff Bay. In the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 1964, Voulie invited me to go with him to a unity prayer service in Bristol's Greek Orthodox Church on Stapleton Road. It's still there at the foot of the M32 urban motorway, distinctive because its pointed spire was capped for safety's sake decades ago. It had been the Anglican Parish church of St Simon the Apostle Baptist Mills in a densely populated working class area of East Bristol, built in 1847 in the Victorian Gothic style, one of half a dozen Parish churches serving the huge industrial artisan community which grew up along the banks of the river Frome in the 19th century.
Bristol's prodigious wealth led to the establishment of missions and then church building in the area - too many to be sustainable long term with a shifting population. In 1956 St Simon's Parish was united with St Agnes, its neighbour on the north side of Stapleton Road a couple of hundred yards away and the building sold to Bristol's thriving Greek Orthodox church. At that time it served all of the city's Eastern Orthodox communities as it was the only one of its kind.
The service I attended with Voulie was life changing for me. At a time when I was discovering the catholic tradition of worship and spirituality through meeting Anglican and Roman Catholic fellow students, I was immersed in the profoundly other-worldly experience of Byzantine ritual, music and profound silence. On that occasion Oliver Tompkins, Bishop of Bristol was an honoured guest at the service. I was drawn to the ethos of Orthodoxy, and over time began to find in it the same depth of devotion as I found in traditional Prayer Book Anglicanism.
I joined the ecumenical fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius and learned a lot about Eastern Christianity from lectures and people I met. These included Deacon Nicholas Behr, a recent graduate of St Sergius Russian Orthodox seminary in Paris, who performed the deacon's role, leading prayer in Old Church Slavonic at a Greek Orthodox liturgy, an experience of cultural diversity I'd never come across before. He became the pioneer parish priest of the Russian church in Bristol, earning his living as a carpenter, finding a redundant church building which had belonged to a charismatic sect, and renovating it for use, thanks to his skills - a remarkable example of self supporting ministry serving eastern European exiles in the city and wider region.
When I returned to Bristol, to serve as parish priest in 1975, it was as Vicar of St Agnes with St Simon. On the Sunday before my induction I celebrated Mass at the Parish Church of St Jude in neighbouring Easton, where the Vicar was an elderly Welsh cleric Fr Tommy White. When he retired the small Anglo-Catholic stronghold of a parish was merged in a grouping of half a dozen Easton parishes, with a new built parish church, Easton Family Centre with a definite evangelical ethos. St Jude's building was sold and became a Judokwai. Five Easton Parishes were merged into one. The same happened on the north side of Stapleton Road too with St Paul's Area team ministry merging five parishes into one.
Huge social changes occurred in Bristol's inner city area in the second half of the twentieth century, and the decline of the church in grass roots communities, from the Victorian heyday of investment in parish missions, schools and churches to the multiple mergers and redundancies that are symptomatic of decline in life of the church in Britain in the late 20th and 21st century.
Clare went to her study group in Penarth this morning, and I cooked lunch in time for her return. Taking out a bag of frozen peas from the freezer drawer led to a problem getting the over filled draw back into place. It got stuck and nothing I could do would free it without breaking. My hands got very cold trying to move it. Fortunately Clare returned on time, and proved far more skillful than I at negotiating the drawer back into place. After we'd eaten I succumbed to sleep for an hour and a quarter. I needed it for sure. Then, a walk in Llandaff Fields. I couldn't shake off a lack of energy feeling. When I returned I was faced with the usual chore of emptying the house rubbish containers and putting out the bins for collection tomorrow morning. It was such a physical effort, so frustrating, I don't know why. In my diary a reminder to expect a call from the cardio specialist this afternoon, but no call came. I'm seeing him on Thursday anyway, when the cardio monitor is due to be returned. It's been a misery having to wear it all week. I wonder what data it has recorded and how this will inform whatever treatment I receive next.
Owain arrived at supper time. He's come to stay for a few days and work remotely from here. We sat together and watched a hilarious episode of 'Fawlty Towers', screened in memory of Prunella Scales. Her death was announced this morning. It's lovely to have Owain's company again.
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