Corners of France are forever England

From France-

France is home to more than 10 purpose-built Anglican churches. The Connexion discovers more about some of them

Most of France’s Anglican churches were built in the late 19th Century.

This was when strong British communities developed in towns as far apart as Lille, in the north, Dinard in Brittany, Pau and Vernet-les-Bains in the Pyrénées, and Nice and Menton on the Mediterranean.

Christ Church in Lille is planning its 150th anniversary this year and last year Vernet-les-Bains became the first French church to have bells capable of English change-ringing.

St Bartholomew’s Church, in Dinard, Ille-et-Vilaine, recently welcomed a new chaplain, the Rev Gary Wilton, who is delighted with his new parish.

More here-

https://www.connexionfrance.com/Community/Your-News/Corners-of-France-are-forever-England-as-France-is-home-to-more-than-10-purpose-built-Anglican-churches

A Controversial Restoration That Wipes Away the Past

From The New York Times-

The pilgrim did not find what he was searching for. As a child, Patrice Bertrand heard his mother recount details of her visit to the shrine of the famous Black Madonna of Chartres Cathedral, 60 miles southwest of Paris. Now Mr. Bertrand, 41, of Nantes, was following in her footsteps. But he was perplexed by what he discovered: “The statue I came to see is not here anymore,” he said. The Black Madonna had become white.

The decision to remove what a plaque in the cathedral calls the “unsightly coating” from the 16th-century wooden icon has come to symbolize the contested transformation of Chartres, which has been undergoing a decade-long restoration. For almost 500 years, pilgrims worshiped the Virgin’s dark visage, and it accrued the kind of mythic currency integral to Catholic worship. To some critics, the repainting has erased a cultural memory from a building its restorers say they are saving.

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/arts/design/chartres-cathedral-restoration-controversial.html

France Church Attack: Abdel-Malik Petitjean Was Known Potential Radical

From NBC-

The second culprit behind an ISIS-linked attack that killed a priest in a church was a teenager reportedly known to security services as a potential Islamist militant.

French judicial sources told NBC News that 19-year-old Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean, was identified from his DNA.

Petitjean, who is from eastern France, and accomplice Adel Kermiche, also 19, targeted the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during morning Mass.

They slashed a priest's throat and took three nuns and an elderly couple hostage. One nun later escaped and raised the alarm. Both attackers were later killed by authorities.

More here-

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/france-church-attack-abdel-malik-petitjean-was-known-potential-radical-n618661

In Paris, do we have to love our enemies? Bishop Whalon statement

From ENS-

How can we pray this prayer of all prayers, here in Paris, the day after?

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth: deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 818.)

Yes, Jesus did command us: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27). Really? Yesterday several terrorists killed at least 128 people in 6 separate but coordinated attacks here in Paris. According to the Islamic State group, Da’ech, this was planned in advance and ordered from their base in Syria, in retaliation for the French involvement there.

The French president, François Hollande, has promised to reply in kind: “We will be merciless.” Meanwhile, hundreds of families are mourning their dead and wounded, attacked simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks in January were targeted specifically; these six attacks were against “targets of opportunity,” as the military says.

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/11/14/in-paris-do-we-have-to-love-our-enemies-bishop-whalon-statement/

France offers Iraq Christians asylum after Mosul threat

From The BBC-

The French government says it is ready to offer asylum to Iraqi Christians forced to flee by Islamist militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Many fled Mosul after the Islamic State (IS) group which seized much of northern Iraq told them to convert to Islam, pay a tax or face death.

Iraq is home to one of the world's most ancient Christian communities.

Two top ministers said, "We are ready, if they so desire, to help facilitate asylum on our territory."

More here-

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28521778

Belanger ordained as Episcopal Church’s first French female priest

From ENS-

The Rev. Fanny Sohet Belanger loves to help people grow in their relationships with God. At the same time, she says, it is important not to be “trapped” in the church but to engage in mission and to reach out to people where they are. These are the principles that have guided Belanger’s spiritual journey, a path that led to her Feb. 1 ordination as the first French female priest in the Episcopal Church.

“My ministry is not to bring religion to people, but to enable them to craft their own theology and spirituality by helping them know their tradition and engage with the Scriptures,” she told ENS in a recent interview. “Prayer is very important to me and I consider it the heart of the church.”

Belanger, 38, was ordained by Bishop Pierre Whalon at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, where she moved with her husband, Xavier, in August 2011 to complete a Master of Divinity degree. She was ordained a deacon at VTS in March 2013.

Whalon, bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, described Belanger as a “candidate of extraordinary qualities [with a] very inviting, warm pastoral presence … She is a woman for all people.”

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/02/03/belanger-ordained-as-episcopal-churchs-first-french-female-priest/#comments

EUROPE: French government seeks help from Episcopal convocation in assisting Baghdad's wounded Christians

From ELO-

The French government is looking to the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe to assist in the treatment and resettling of Christians wounded in the Oct. 31 attack on the Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad, Iraq, that left 58 people dead.
Europe Bishop Pierre Whalon said Nov. 2 that he welcomes the initiative of the French government to work with the Association d'Entraide aux Minorités d'Orient (AEMO) to bring relief to the wounded Iraqi Christians.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office on Nov. 1 informed Whalon, who is president of AEMO, that "France will spare no effort to offer refuge and medical care to those victims who request it," according to a press release from the convocation. Eric Besson, France’s minister of immigration, announced the initiative publicly.

The commitment follows French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's Oct. 25 promise to empower AEMO to resettle more Iraqi Christians and members of other religious minorities whose lives are in danger because of their faith, the release said.

Since 2008, Episcopalians in Europe, Iraqi Chaldeans, and French Catholics have assisted with resettling refugees after Whalon urged the French government to support a new immigration program that offers sanctuary to persecuted Iraqi religious minorities. Whalon was a special guest of Sarkozy in September 2008, when the program's first Iraqi participants were invited to Elysée Palace during Pope Benedict XVI's first official visit to France.

More here-

http://www.episcopal-life.org/81808_125555_ENG_HTM.htm

English Anglicans breathe life into French chapels

From AFP-

The priest is a married woman, the Anglican service is in English, yet the old stone chapel in Bordeaux is definitely 100 percent French Roman Catholic.

In southwest France, once a battlefield between medieval English and French armies, expats are breathing life into borrowed Catholic churches left empty by their local flocks, quietly sprouting a dozen Anglican congregations.

As sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows of the 19th century chapel, Reverend Gill Stratchan unpacked the chalice she would use for the Sunday service while her husband sorted prayer books.

"I was ordained a priest in a magnificent abbey in the Dordogne in 2007," said Stratchan, a retired British schoolteacher resident in France since 1996.

Two Catholic priests and a bishop attended her ordination in their abbey. "It was a fairly unique situation for them to see a woman ordained," she said.

But the broad-mindedness on the part of the French was not entirely unexpected. "What brings us together is stronger than what divides us," said Father Lanuc, in charge of ecumenical relations for the Archbishop of Bordeaux.

"An English Anglican has the right to take Holy Communion in a French Roman Catholic church, which is not allowed anywhere else," added Reverend Paul Vrolijk, Chaplain of the regional Anglican Diocese and unofficial diplomat.

An important factor for this peaceful cohabitation is a long if tangled mutual history that includes the Hundred Years War in the Middle Ages, and a more recent ban on churches poaching each other's followers.

"We are not trying to steal their sheep," said Dutch-born Vrolijk. "Our mission is very clear -- it only includes English-speakers."

The resulting congregations are microcosms of the expat community, a mixed bag of Anglicans, mainline Protestant denominations, and a few English-speaking Catholics, all of which leads to occasional squabbles on questions of faith.

More here-

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJU0lKltrkgwDcP3n6U7d2cx8yjw

Why Anglican England is better than secular France

From the London Telegraph a reflection on the differences between the "faiths" of France and England

The French Republic, belligerently secular since the Revolution, and whose separation of church and state is encoded in a 1905 law, may start according a special role to the Catholic Church; that at least is one interpretation of comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy that a new, "positive secularity" should recognise the central place of religion in the country. "It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion" he said - "[it would be] a failing against culture and against thought".

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/urmeekhan/blog/2008/09/15/why_anglican_england_is_better_than_secular_france