The Shepherd, August 2005
BROOKWOOD NEWS, 1
HERITAGE OPEN DAYS
THE NATIONWIDE “Heritage Open Days” fall this year between 8th and 11th September. With the help of Woking Galleries, our Brotherhood will be participating in this event, hosting visits to the church and explaining its significance and the ways of Orthodox worship.
We shall also be holding three special events: Parishioner Annie Shaw of the Fellowship of St Luke has kindly volunteered to give a presentation on icon-painting, and our own Fr Thomas will be similarly making a presentation on bookbinding. These presentations will be on the Saturday afternoon (10/9/05).
And as the Heritage Open Days come just a week before the celebration of St Edward’s day on 16th September, on the Thursday, 8th September at 6 p.m., we are also hosting the following talk:
St Eadweard the Martyr – The Historical King
A talk given by Eadmund Dunstall,
(founder of the English Companions)
Eadmund Malcolm Dunstall has been interested in the Anglo-Saxons since his schooldays, and when he reached the age of twenty-one he dedicated his life to the promotion of interest in the Anglo-Saxon period of our history, whose state of neglect in the national consciousness he thought was at the least gross and at the worst criminal. He shares a patron saint with the country that he loves, for St Eadmund was the patron saint of England long before the Norman conquerors supplanted him with St George. In 1966, the nine-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Sandlake (Hastings), by single-handedly raising a petition in the streets of his home town he founded the English Companions, a Fellowship also under the patronage of St Eadmund, dedicated to promoting interest in the Anglo-Saxons. The Fellowship still flourishes today, and has played its part in the small but perceptible revival of public awareness of the period. He has been its Leader, Secretary and Magazine Editor at various times, occasionally when necessary holding two of these offices at once! Although not now having any executive position in the Fellowship, he still retains an interest now chiefly centring around Anglo-Saxon art and architecture, and he has written articles on this subject for Orthodox England, a magazine of Orthodox reading published by Fr Andrew Phillips.
At the end of the talk there will be a retiring collection to contribute to Mr Dunstall’s costs. If possible, would those intending to join us on this occasion, please let us know in advance.
BAPTISM AT BROOKWOOD
ON SUNDAY 4th / 17th July, the feast of the New Royal Martyrs of Russia, the infant son of Leo and Gabriella Pepper of Kingston-upon-Thames, Lucas, was baptised, chrismated and given his first Communion at St Edward’s Church. Fr Peter Baulk was the celebrant and also stood as a godfather, along with Dan Gheorghe and Carmen Cotic. Leo and Gabriella asked their guests to give donations to the Building Fund rather than presents to the baby, and they provided a very fine spread (Australian and Romanian cuisine!) for everyone on the lawns after the ceremony.
GIFT OF A HAND-PAINTED ICON
MARY O’BRIEN from the States recently visited St Edward’s with her family, and while in England she and her sister, Elizabeth Castle, visited their mother, Mother Pelagia, at the Lesna Icon Convent in Normandy, Northern France. On their return they brought with them an icon, hand-painted at the Convent, of the martyr, St Varus, a gift to the Brotherhood from Mother Pelagia. This saint is popularly resorted to in prayer for those who have died who were not Orthodox Christians, and so, as many of us, converts and cradle Orthodox alike, now have many relatives and friends who are not Orthodox, we are hoping to make prints of the icon so that it can be distributed as widely as possible as a comfort to those who are bereaved of such loved ones. Our photographer recently had to re-locate and so for a period we have not been able to get icons professionally photographed to the standard required for printing, but he is now back in business and we have just received the photographic prints and negatives of this icon and that of All Saints of London, which we also hope to reproduce when funds allow.
We have also been given a beautiful corner cupboard and stand, with carved dark wooden panels in an ecclesiastical, Jacobean style by Collin and Anna Skyers of Bisley. God bless these donors for helping to beautify God’s house.
|
