What is in Kelvin's Head?

New Provosting

31/08/2012

There’s a new provosting tonight in Oban and I’m carefully packing the Cope of Glory.

There’s certainly a sense of purpose and excitement about the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles these days.

[Trivia point – the definite article in the name of the diocese is capitalised for the Episcopal diocese of Argyll and The Isles but not capitalised for the Roman Catholic diocese of Argyll and the Isles. You learn these things whilst editing a magazine].

It is always exciting to witness the start of a new ministry which inevitably means someone landing in the middle of a load of other ministries and working out how to relate to them all and trying to help weave them together into one coherent whole.

When you start working in a church it is often the little things that give you the most stress. You can read the accounts and meet the vestry, but who tells you what order the first part of the liturgy works on your first Sunday. Somehow everyone expects you to know the little things.

I remember when I arrived at St Mary’s I wanted to know one small liturgical detail about the start of the service. I asked around. One person told me we did it one way. Another person told me we did it precisely the opposite way. And a third smiled sweetly and said, “We do it whatever way you want, Provost”. All I wanted to know was what was the norm.

There is a legend here that one of my predecessors was once told that he had made 35 changes to the liturgy when he arrived and was surprised to hear that he had made any of them. I can see how that happens, and people think that the slightest change is a point of principle.

Down south, the person who runs a cathedral is a Dean. They are sometimes thought of as “the first priest in the diocese” and occasionally act as a kind of shop steward, able to articulate in a particular way what it is like to be a priest with charge in a diocese and sometimes murmur in the bishop’s ear the concerns of those who don’t get the same chances to do so.

There can be some of that up here too. But here there’s that distinctive word. Up here, the word Provost has its roots in the latin and hints of someone who has been pushed to the front.

My good wishes to Provost Nicki McNelly as she takes up her appointment in Oban. Provosting is an exciting business and, as cathedrals take their particular and a distinctive ministry I believe in. Cathedrals occupy an interesting place in the life of the modern church which I don’t think many could see 20 years ago.

Welcome, Nicki to one particular front line of mission and ministry.

11 responses to “We should be wary of declaring martyrs”

Eamonn

08/04/2015

Agree totally. I find myself in a comparable position vis-à-vis the mass canonisations of the ‘martyrs’ of the Spanish Civil War, which assume that all those worthy of commemoration were on the same side.

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Michael Russell

08/04/2015

Anyone killed for professing their faith is a martyr. ISIS is an equal opportunity martyring machine. The various faith communities targeted, including Islamic ones, should build common ground to dismember ISIS. I simply fail to see the point in quibbling about who is a real martyr and who is not.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/04/2015
  
  Is it your view that someone is a martyr for Christianity because they cannot recite a verse from the Qur’an?
  
  It seems to me that whilst some men and women of violence are being claimed to be martyrs if they should be shot by law enforcement agencies whilst pursuing paths of terror that there’s a huge amount to be gained by determining who is a martyr and who isn’t.
  
  Reply
  1. Bro David
    
    08/04/2015
    
    Not being able to explain a quranic verse was merely a way of discerning if someone was not Muslim. However, is it not just as great a presumption to think they weren’t martyrs, as to think that they were.
    
    The early church seemed to accept that all who were crucified or sent to the lions for their Christianity were martyrs. Perhaps not all did so as a statement of faith, but were nominal Christians caught up with the rest. But the church didn’t seem obliged to footnote who didn’t qualify.
    
    I’m not sure that I understand why your are hesitant. It seems a quibble. I don’t think anyone is leaning toward canonization here, just speaking of them as a whole.
    
    Reply
Jo

08/04/2015

The SEC still keeps the feast of Charles, King and Martyr. I don’t think we get to be too narrow in defining who is or isn’t a martyr.

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1. Kelvin
  
  09/04/2015
  
  Actually, Jo – that’s not quite right. The SEC keeps the commemoration of “Charles I, King, 1649”
  
  There’s no mention of him being a martyr in the calendar (and the current calendar superseded and replaced the one in the prayer book). There are plenty of people who are named as martyrs such as Agnes the week before Charles or indeed “Charles Mackenzie of Central Africa, Bishop, Missionary, Martyr, 1862” the very day after Charles.
  
  It would appear that rather careful thought was given to whether to describe Charles as a martyr and though he is included in the calendar (not least for founding one of our dioceses) any notion of martyrdom is absent.
  
  Reply
  1. Jo
    
    09/04/2015
    
    Thanks for the correction, I hadn’t realised there was that detail of difference between the SEC and CofE.
    
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Father David

10/04/2015

Of course, King Charles was a Martyr and is commemorated as such on January 31st each year. The trouble is that Anglicans have no real mechanism for declaring people to be saints or martyrs. Having referred to two recent horrific incidents on the African continent where Christians were slaughtered simply for being Christians, I wonder what the Provost of Glasgow thinks about the Ugandan Martyrs of the 19th century and would you personally regard them to be martyrs? As you know 23 Anglicans and 22 Roman Catholics were killed by the Kabaka for refusing to submit to King Mwanga’s corporal intimacies. The Roman Catholics were beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1964 but what of our Anglican Ugandan brothers – where they equally to be regarded as martyrs, or would you deny them that honorific title?

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1. Kelvin
  
  10/04/2015
  
  The Scottish Episcopal Calendar is again very clear: “Charles Lwanga and his companions, 1886, Janani Luwum, Bishop, 1977, Martyrs of Uganda”
  
  I have no idea why anyone would say that the SEC has no means of declaring someone to be a martyr. Not only do we have such a mechanism, we use it.
  
  Reply
Father David

10/04/2015

It would be interesting to know how this mechanism works in the SEC in deciding who is eligible to join the noble army of martyrs? Bishop Edward King of Lincoln is widely regarded as a saint South of the Border. I think it was Archbishop Lang who was asked how it was decided that Bishop King had reached sainthood status and the answer was that he was given a Collect, Epistle and Gospel to commemorate his saint’s day – 8th March, the day of his Heavenly Birthday.

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Harry Campbell

19/04/2015

“We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/isis-video-purports-to-show-massacre-of-two-groups-of-ethiopian-christians

What a shame the Archbishop couldn’t have said something similarly inclusive about the victims of the Kenyan massacre, and all such massacres, without caring about what their religion affiliation may or may not have been.

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