• Sermon preached on 15 July 2012

    A few months ago, I decided to have my kitchen decorated. As many of you know, I don’t live in a church property – I live in my own flat. So it was the first time that I got to make all the decisions and all the mistakes for myself without having to negotiate with a church committee about it.

    Quite often it is difficult to get church property committees to agree to anything terribly exciting as there is always the thought in mind that one day someone else will come along and the consequent presumption that it would be better to have a colour that can be foisted on someone else rather than have a room redecorated for them.

    I remember a priest friend I knew who retired and said his hobby was going to be painting his retirement home in garish colours. After all, he said, he’d lived with (more…)

33 responses to “Companions?”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    No, Kimberley – he ISN’T a Primate. He is merely first among equals and has no powers as a primate or metropolitan.

  2. Kimberly Avatar

    So what would you use as the collective noun for Archbishops, Presiding Bishops, Primi (Primuses??), etc?

    I have always heard ‘primates’ as a simple short hand and have not assumed that it tells us anything about the form of governance in any particular province.

  3. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    Ah! But it does! +Idris is Primus (inter pares), but he’s no more a Primate than you or I. This is a delightful distinguishing feature of our Scottish Church. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were various suggestions and attempts to restore some kind of Metropolitan Bishop, but they came to nothing.

    As for a collective noun, I don’t know. I prefer not to think about such meetings!

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