What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Christmas Day Sermon 2012

    Many of you will be aware that I recently have returned from a big sabbatical trip to churches in Canada and the United States.

    I was there to learn and reflect and grow and I did that by making contact with the most interesting folk I could find in church life on the other side of the North Atlantic.

    Inevitably I spent quite a lot of time poking around churches over there and coming from this cathedral, I was interested in what cathedrals over there were up to.

    Which is how I found myself in the National Cathedral in Washington DC just a day or two after the American Election in November.

    It is a mighty building. Far bigger than we are but when I saw it, it was not looking its best. Still recovering from an earthquake which wobbled all its stonework, they have netting strung all across the nave to catch falling fragments. So you stand in this enormous church unable to look up and appreciate the great spaces.

    Unable to look up, instead I went down. For underneath the nave is a maze of twisty passages which lead (more…)

16 responses to “General Convention Press Briefing”

  1. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    People who run cathedrals in the Scottish Episcopal Church are called Provosts, in England and in the US and in much of the rest of the Anglican world they are called Deans.

    For a while, old cathedrals in England had Deans and new cathedrals had Provosts. They made them all deans a few years ago.

    In Scotland we also use the word Provost for the civic leader who would be called a Mayor in a lot of other places.

    Deans in Anglican Dioceses in Scotland are similar to Archdeacons in England or Canons to the Ordinary in the states.

    Reply
  2. susan s. Avatar
    susan s.

    Thanks… So is calling you a dean a forgivable sin? Is it a step up or down for a provost to become a dean?

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Calling me a dean is an understadable mistake. If hierarchy matters, I rank behind the bishop and the dean at diocesan functions. I rank behind the bishop alone at cathedral functions.

    Usually I find that such hierarchical niceties have been worked out as a result of disputes of rather a long time ago.

    Reply
  4. susan s. Avatar
    susan s.

    Thanks, again. I enjoy reading your blog.

    Reply
  5. brad evans Avatar
    brad evans

    “Evangelical Faith, Apostolic Orders(?)-Increasingly Irrelevant Organization”

    Reply
  6. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Bless you, Brad.

    Reply

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