Bleak Sunday covid down-time

I slept OK but woke up bleeding from an operation scar. Eighteen hours a day flat on my back for three days with no exercise, and the sheer physical compression on the old wound is unavoidable. Something I won't find easy to get used to. Covid symptoms are diminished however. My body no longer feels like lead, muzzy head is clearing and fewer aches, pains and shivers. I didn't bother with a self-test as I doubt if I would test negative today. Tomorrow perhaps.

Another Sunday without being able to say Mass or attend church, having to settle for praying on my own. It reminds me of being back in Ibiza living with the limited horizon of estadio de alarma restrictions. Al least it's nothing now to get used to.

The BBC's tireless courageous reporter in Ukraine, Jeremy Bowen gave a disturbing eyewitness report of the trail of murder and destruction left by retreating Russian forces in the suburbs of Kyiv. Dead bodies left in the streets where they were killed weeks ago, Victims with hands tied together. Clear evidence of war crimes. Hundred are said to have been killed. According to Putin, all this is 'fake news'. I wonder if Trump will dare to dismiss revelations against him in future using that phrase. If we does will anyone trust him?

President Zelensky spoke of genocide. Ninety years ago under Stalin millions of Ukrainians, were starved to death during the forcible collectivisation of agriculture, the region punished further by being deprived of a fair share of its produce. If there was shortage, it was blamed on farmers, for whom managed, imposed collectivisation didn't work. Most of the produce was exported to feed the industrial workers of Russia. The Ukrainian's don't forget the Soviet attempt to keep their land subjected by deliberate policy. Using the word 'genocide' is no exaggeration. They've been here before. Expressions of outrage have been voiced around the world all day, even the Israeli government, which has tried to stay on the fence, because of its security interests in Syria relying on Russian complicity. Pope Francis is talking about a pastoral visit to Kyiv. 

Archbishop Rowan was on the Radio adding his voice to the call to suspend the Russian Orthodox state church from membership of the WCC for speaking of the country's mission as holy war. The question is, will Orthodox Bishops around the world make the case for regarding such talk as heresy? Sadly, in both scripture and Christian poetry there is widespread used of bloodthirsty martial imagery. Its impact is deflected into religious rhetoric about spiritual warfare, but there are no concrete safeguards to protect the unspiritual and the gullible from taking this all literally. Back in the Vietnam war, US marines with evangelical religion behind them talked about 'killing a gook for God'. It's blasphemy, just as is any talk of holy war. Time for all Christians to take stock about this kind of abuse of scripture

Both before and after lunch I went out and walked for forty minutes each with a mask on and aimed for parts of the park where there was little human traffic. I wanted to test my strength and stamina carefully. All is well, thank God. Clare, on the other hand is still suffering from the trapped nerve in her back. Her Wednesday appointment has been moved to Tuesday, thanks to a cancellation.

This evening there were two great programmes on BBC Four, one about the food history of Florence, the other, the latest Royal Shakespeare Company's Stratford production of Much Ado about Nothing. It had a majority cast of brilliant mostly young black actors and was vibrant with colour, energetic music and movement; very hip and funky, but it didn't seem contrived, as a modern setting might do. It worked as a showcase for the immortal comedic dialogue of the Bard, funny as any classic farce of intrigue and confused identities. A breath of fresh air. One up for multi-cultural diversity. It's what we need in a world where aggressive nationalism has been made into a demonic idol that consumes its own kind.

Turmoil in Orthodox lands

Our Spanish neighbour Miriam called for Clare this morning at nine when I was having breakfast, and the two of them went for a swim together. I received a second email from my friend Valdo within a few days of the last one, which I hadn't yet got around to reading. This one told me something surprising about a previous colleague of ours from my time in Geneva. Père Jean Renneteau an Orthodox priest of the Russian Exarchate Archdiocese of Western Europe was a member of our local ministers fraternal. He hailed from Bordeaux and had trained for the Orthodox priesthood in the renowned St Sergius Institute in Paris. 

Jean was then pastor to the French speaking congregation at the international Orthodox centre in nearby Chambésy, which had two dozen nationalities among its membership. Attending the Easter Liturgy there was a wonderful multi-lingual experience with Russian liturgical music I learned to sing in English as a young student, sung there in French. Since then, Jean's responsibilities had widened considerably, both among the Orthodox in Switzerland, internationally and ecumenically. He was ordained Bishop in 2016, elected by the Oecumenical Patriarchal Synod in Istanbul, then consecrated in the church at Chambésy. I don't think I was aware of this, but it doesn't surprise me that it happened. He was then appointed Exarch - in effect, leading Bishop of the Oecumenical Patriarchate's Russian Orthodox congregations in Western Europe.

What surprised me however, was to learn that in 2019 he was received into communion with the Patriarch in Moscow, and made Archbishop of all its Russian Orthodox congregations of Western Europe. This happened a year after the Ukrainian Orthodox church unilaterally declared itself independent of Moscow. It was formally recognised by the Oecumenical Patriarchate Père Jean had been ordained to serve. The Ukrainian church initiative resulted in Moscow breaking off communion with the Oecumenical Patriarch (not that this hasn't happened before in the strained history of Orthodox international relations), but was this of sufficient concern to lead Père Jean to change allegiance? After all Père Jean isn't a native Russian speaker. Moscow lays claim to all Russian Orthodox congregations of the Exarchate in Europe whether they are Russian speaking or not. Many Exarchate congregations refuse this claim however. Is Père Jean ministering now to all the congregations or just those loyal to Moscow? It's a right puzzle, and I'm not sure how I can get any satisfactory answer.

Even more remarkable Père Jean is among the group of Orthodox theologians that has recently spoken out against the war in Ukraine and being deeply critical of the presumptions behind Putin's justification for his actions. Patriarch Kyril of Moscow has been notably silent thus far. Is Père Jean acting as his voice, or just voicing the views of the Russian Orthodox diaspora in Western Europe? It's an amazing turn of events. Père Jean is a remarkable Orthodox pastor, ecumenist, internationalist. It could be that he has the trust of each party in this ecclesiastical dispute with serious political repercussions. And to think that thirty years ago we used to have lunch together every few months in an ordinary Suisse auberge in Versoix!

I went to St Catherine's at ten, my head trying to take in these intriguing thoughts, to celebrate the Eucharist, with the usual group of ten that regularly attend. We chatted long over coffee after church and on the way back. By the time I returned home Clare was cooking lunch. Afterwards, I walked around Llandaff Fields, and then returned to see what else I could find out about the situation with the Russian Exarchate congregations in Europe. 

Curiosity then led me to see if there was any new news about Mar Johanna Ibrahim, the Archbishop of Aleppo, kidnapped with a Roman Greek Catholic Bishop, both on a hostage negotiating mission, when Aleppo was being fought over and destroyed. A couple of articles allege that both were murdered by their abductors in 2013, but neither of their bodies have been found, and the researcher's findings are unsubstantiated. Will the truth ever be known, I wonder? It's heart breaking to think that the population of indigenous Oriental Orthodox Christians in Middle Eastern Countries is a tenth of what it was at the turn of the century, due to war of islamist persecution, after one and a half millennia of co-existence.

This evening we watched 'The Repair Shop' and then the first episode of the third series of bilingual Welsh (Cymru Du) crimmie 'Hidden'. Another slow burner, I'm afraid, but atmospheric and beautifully produced.

Over-promised, under-delivered

I posted the link to this week's Morning Prayer and Reflection on the Parish WhatsApp group as soon as I woke up, then after breakfast, Clare headed off to school, and I went down to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with half a dozen others. On the sacristy take I found a Byzantine icon of St John the Evangelist standing with the blessed Virgin Mary, capturing that moment when Jesus dying on the cross asks John to look after his mother. An label on the back said it was a thank you gift from the Russian Orthodox Exarchate Parish which has been using the church on Sunday afternoons since lock-down denied them the use of the chapel in Cathays which is part of the Nazareth House convent/nursing home. 

Interestingly enough Conway Road Methodist Church offers hospitality to another Russian Orthodox congregation on Sunday afternoons, one that is under the Patriarchate of Moscow. The Russian Exarchate federation of churches began in the 1920s after the revolution, when many exiles felt that the Patriarchate of Moscow had compromised itself in order to survive under Soviet domination. It retains its identity and independence throughout Europe and owes allegiance to the Oecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 

A new influx of Russian ex-pats arrived in the wake of glasnost who retained loyalty to Moscow and set up their own churches, once they realised the Exarchate congregations didn't want to return to the fold. It's a bit like the co-existence of indigenous Anglican Communion dioceses in Spain and Portugal, which are at least as old as many of the diocese in Europe ex-pat chaplaincies. Different pastoral needs call for different responses.

I returned from church to find a note from the postman about the failed parcel delivery - Clare's specs, which she left in Kenilworth a couple of weeks ago, sent on by Kath, which means another visit to the main depot to retrieve them. In theory you can ring up and book a re-delivery, but in practice the line is always busy or not answering. Then, I had a text message from OpenReach about Friday's Future Fibre broadband upgrade presuming we'd already received the new router and digi-box "A few days" ago. 

Yodel, the parcel delivery company emailed yesterday to say the packages had been dispatched, but there was no delivery this morning, so I was forced to postpone the installation for a fortnight, which was done efficiently by text message within an hour. TalkTalk, Open Reach and Yodel all seem to be working on different time scales at the moment. It's impossible to know when, and wastes a lot of time just waiting to get things done. I was told by someone at St John's that a member of the congregation had signed up to change from BT to Sky broadband, and has been waiting a fortnight without the service switch-over being completed.

I cooked lunch, then  went for a walk through the Bute Park woods - much of the park is still open by day, it's the arboretum area that's closed off for the light show. Then I wrote next week's biblical reflection and started drafting this year's Christmas newsletter. It made me realise when I'd finished how much we'd been able to get away this year in spite of covid restrictions. I have missed going abroad, but am grateful nevertheless for what we have been able to do.

In an effort to spend less time working on the computer or the phone, I stopped after supper and watched another episode of 'Crossing Lines on My5, in the absence of anything interesting on live telly.