The Shepherd, December 2008
NEWS SECTION
THE GLASTONBURY THORN
MOST of our readers will know something about the Glastonbury Thorn, and how when England was on the Old Calendar it would flower on Christmas Day. However, that splendid journal, the “Mendip Messenger” published a piece on 8th October, highlighting a fund-raising pilgrimage being made by one Adam Stout, who has written a book on the Thorn, to benefit the Glastonbury Pilgrim Reception Centre. The article adds an interesting highlight to the story of the Thorn’s resolute Old Calendarism. It states that when the calendar was changed: “Thousands of people turned up in town to see if the thorn, a descendent of the one that legend says grew when Joseph of Arimathea planted his staff in the ground, would bloom on Christmas Day. And one of these was an eccentric Yorkshireman John Jackson who walked all the way from the county to Glastonbury. It was in 1753 that the British calendar was altered to bring the country into line with Europe. Eleven days were dropped from the month of September and many people were worried by the changes.” The result of this eighteenth century investigation is recorded in Mr Stout’s book; which the Messenger article quotes thus: “thousands ‘attended the thorn on Christmas Eve, New-stile but to their disappointment there was no appearance of its blowing (which presumably means flowering) which made them watch it narrowly on 5th January, Christmas Day Old-stile, when it blowed as usual, and in one day’s time was white as a sheet.’” We must remember that in the eighteenth century the difference between the Old and New Calendars was eleven days, whereas now it has widened to thirteen days. What woes striving to be in line with “Europe” has brought us! We should note that there seems to be no ancient tradition concerning Joseph of Arimathea’s coming to Britain, although it is not entirely improbable. His contemporaries, the Holy Apostles Simon the Zealot of the Twelve and Aristobulus of the Seventy certainly did. However, whatever the truth of the Joseph legend, the Thorn itself did and does manifest the miracle of its flowering at Christmas, and whatever its exact provenance, it is undoubtedly a holy thing.
NEW METROPOLITAN FOR THE OCA
OCA Communications reports that: “On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, His Grace, Bishop Jonah of Fort Worth was elected Archbishop of Washington and New York and Metropolitan of All America and Canada at the 15th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America. His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah was born James Paffhausen in Chicago, IL, and was baptized into the Episcopal Church. While still a child, his family later settled in La Jolla, CA, near San Diego. He was received into the Orthodox Church in 1978 at Our Lady of Kazan Moscow Patriarchal Church, San Diego.” … Interrupting his higher education, he spent a year in Russia, and “in Moscow, working for Russkiy Palomnik at the Publishing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, he was introduced to life in the Russian church, in particular monastic life. Later that year, he joined Valaam Monastery, having found a spiritual father in the monastery’s Abbot, Archimandrite Pankratiy. It was Archimandrite Pankratiy’s spiritual father, the Elder Kyrill at Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, who blessed James to become a priestmonk. He was ordained to the diaconate and priesthood in 1994 and in 1995 was tonsured to monastic rank at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, PA, having received the name Jonah. Returning to California, Fr. Jonah served a number of missions and was later given the obedience to establish a monastery under the patronage of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The monastery, initially located in Point Reyes Station, CA, recently moved to Manton in Northern California, near Redding. During his time building up the monastic community, Fr. Jonah also worked to establish missions in Merced, Sonora, Chico, Eureka, Redding, Susanville, and other communities in California, as well as in Kona, HI. In the spring of 2008, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America elevated Fr. Jonah to the rank of Archimandrite and he was given the obedience to leave the monastery and take on the responsibilities of auxiliary bishop and chancellor for the Diocese of the South. Bishop Jonah’s episcopal election took place on September 4, 2008…. Bishop Jonah was consecrated Bishop of Forth Worth and Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of the South, at St. Seraphim Cathedral, Dallas, TX, on Saturday, November 1, 2008.… Metropolitan Jonah will be installed by the OCA’s Holy Synod of Bishops at St. Nicholas Cathedral, Washington, DC, on December 28, 2008.”
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