The Shepherd, May 2007
BROOKWOOD NEWS, 1
VISIT OF BISHOP AMBROSE OF METHONI
AS ANNOUNCED in the last issue, His Grace Bishop Ambrose of Methoni, visited England for the Lazarus Saturday / Palm Sunday weekend. Members of the Brotherhood collected him from his mother’s home in North London on the Friday afternoon and brought him to Brookwood. We arrived just at the time of the evening meal. The weather was suitably English, rainy and dull, and in looking over the building works and the New Monastic House, the Bishop got splattered in mud, but appeared to take it in good heart. Father Stephen Fretwell and his Matushka Joanna came early for the Vigil service, so that they might have an opportunity to get acquainted with the Bishop. At the Vigil, in which we combined the services for Lazarus Saturday and St Edward, it being the commemoration of his martyrdom, His Grace prayed within the altar, coming out to venerate the sacred relics and bless the congregation with the anointing at the end of the polyeleos. Nikolai and Tatiana Yellachich kindly took the Bishop to their home to spend the night, as the accommodation here is even more cramped and disorderly than usual, with the building work in progress. The next morning the weather was beautiful, and Bishop Ambrose was met at the church doors and presented with bread and salt by Michael Woodrow, and with our clergy he celebrated the Divine Liturgy for the feast. After the Gospel he preached a beautiful sermon, or rather series of short sermons, on the feast, on the witness of St Edward and its lessons for us, and on the significance of monasticism. With the disorder in the house, we were only able to provide a buffet lunch, but Bishop Ambrose took that opportunity to meet and talk with as many of the parishioners as he could. As usual, we had a multi-ethnic congregation, and with his facility with languages His Grace delighted most of the people by being able to speak to them in their own languages.
In the afternoon we set out for the Convent, where, because of traffic congestion, we arrived just as the Vigil Service for Palm Sunday was due to begin. After the service, during which the Bishop blessed the palms for the faithful, Mother Vikentia and the Sisters treated us to a supper. Bishop Ambrose stayed in London and we returned to Brookwood. On the day of Palm Sunday, the Liturgy at the Convent was packed with people, their own parishioners, many from Brookwood (where on that day we did not have a Liturgy) and a large contingent of Romanian Orthodox Christians, who are faithful to the Synod in Resistance’s Sister Church, the Traditionalist Synod in Romania under Metropolitan Vlasie. There seemed to be more people there than we had seen since the funeral of the late Abbess Seraphima. In deference to the Russian custom, the Bishop preached at the end of the Liturgy on this occasion, and again he gave a series of sermons, talking about the Great Feast, the Convent itself and their dedication festival, the Annunciation which was to fall at the end of the same week. After the service, the sisters treated us to a proper trapeza, but proceedings were somewhat held up because the Bishop took the opportunity to say a word to those people who were unable to stay. Again, we had a multi-ethnic congregation and again, he spoke individually to as many people as he could. Weeks after, we still have people, who will not accept that Bishop Ambrose is not Greek / Romanian / Russian / etc, and all recall his visit as an uplifting and joyous occasion. We look forward to many more, and may the Great High Priest and Shepherd grant unto His servant, Bishop Ambrose, and to His Eminence Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili with whose blessing he came to England, Many Years!
EVEN NON-RUSSIAN SAINTS GRANT AID!
A LADY from Murmansk in the far north of Russia, near the Arctic Sea, has recently written to us. She says: “I visited your Brotherhood on June 30, 2006, and was greatly impressed by everything I saw. It was my first visit to the Orthodox Church abroad. I’d like to tell you a short story connected with St Edward. In September, 2006, I was to be operated on. Though it was a small operation on the toe, I was anxious and before it I had prayed in front of my icons at home. Then I took the icon of St Edward and thought: ‘How can you help me? You are not Russian, etc.’ When I came to the hospital it turned out that my doctor was Edward. The operation was successful. Thanks God.” As the ever-memorable Bishop Gregory of Washington said when he came in 1984 to receive the sacred relics, “The saints of God do not need passports!”
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