These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Joseph of Arimathea, witness to Jesus

Joseph of Arimathea makes a brief but significant appearance in all four Gospels as the person who saw to the burial of Jesus. Arimathea is probably to be identified with a Judean town northwest of Jerusalem known in Hebrew as Ramah and associated in biblical tradition with the prophet Samuel (1 Sam 1: 1:1, 19: 2:1; 7: 17; 8: 4). The designation ‘of Arimathea’ probably simply indicates Joseph’s place of origin; as a member of the Jewish council he is likely to have been a longterm resident of Jerusalem.

While agreeing in the essential point that Joseph was responsible for the burial of Jesus’ body, the four gospels vary considerably in their presentation of the scene and of Joseph himself (Matt 25 :57-60; Mark 15: 42-46; Luke 23: 50-54; John 19: 38-42), especially in regard to the motivation that led him to take the action that he did.

In what is generally agreed to be the earliest account, Mark presents Joseph “as a respected member of the Council (Sanhedrin), who was himself looking for the kingdom of God” (15: 43). This information does not necessarily imply that Joseph was already a disciple of Jesus (as in Matthew and John). Many Jews at the time of Jesus were “looking for the kingdom of God”; it was in the context of such widespread expectation that Jesus entered upon his proclamation of the onset of the kingdom (1: 14-15). Joseph, then, may have been led to ask Pilate for the body of Jesus and see to its burial simply because, as an observant Jew with a strong sense of social responsibility, he felt an obligation to see to the fulfilment of the prescription in Deut 21: 22-23 that the bodies of executed criminals should not be left unburied by nightfall. Nonetheless, as Mark indicates (15: 43), going to Pilate and requesting the body of Jesus involved courage; in so doing Joseph ran the risk of association with the person and cause of one whom the authorities had executed as a threat to the state.

If, then, Joseph was not a disciple at the time of his burial of Jesus (as also seems to emerge from the account of Luke), he was probably on the way to that allegiance. In presenting him unambiguously as a disciple, Matthew (27: 57) and John (‘a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews’ [19: 38]) would then be foreshadowing a commitment on his part that occurred later on but had its origins in an act of social responsibility towards an outcast that soon became enshrined in Christian memory and devotion. In the troubled history of relations between Christians and Jews, the courageous and generous action of this Jewish leader at the beginnings of that history deserves an honourable place.

Later Christian tradition, besides conferring sainthood on Joseph, had him journeying, as far as Britain, founding a church at Glastonbury and bringing the Holy Grail. At this point, however, we are in the realm of legend rather than reliable historical interpretation.

Fr Brendan Byrne SJ

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Patrick & Ninian, Christian pioneers

Patrick c390-c461

Patrick was born in Roman Britain. We know little about his life other than what is revealed in his Confession, his Letter to the soldiers of Coroticus, and the Breastplate of St. Patrick, which may have been written by him. All other knowledge is just legends. Accounts of Patrick’s life are so drawn-out (his own Confession) or overblown (later hagiography) that most of what we know about him can neither be proven nor discredited conclusively.

In the field of Celtic history, almost everything we read reflects a political point the author wishes to make. Bede, for example, makes no mention of Patrick. This omission tells us a lot about Bede. He was interested, following the Council of Whitby, in showing how those who had taken the Roman view regarding the date of Easter and the tonsure, were in his eyes correct; those who didn’t were clearly wrong. Bede had no place for Patrick.

Patrick himself was most likely British in origin, and, after being enslaved by an Irish warlord, and then escaping to the Continent, he returned to Britain before evangelizing Ireland. His mission was not to the British; he said his missionary impulse was fuelled by “a vision in my dreams of a man who seemed to come from Ireland—a vision like the apostle Paul’s at Troas.”

Patrick had been sent as a replacement for Palladius who had died shortly after his arrival in Ireland. Whereas Palladius, whose mission lasted about one year, was interested in those who were already Christians, Patrick, it seems, had a missionary zeal to convert the Scots (Irish). It is believed that Patrick embarked upon the first significant missionary endeavour in 432.

While Patrick does not appear to have represented Rome officially, his time on the Continent may have included monastic training; he appears to have studied at a monastery in Gaul. Patrick was ordained a priest and bishop, and this suggests he would have at least been exposed to current thinking and policies from the papacy.

He then travelled to Ireland, where over the course of several years, he converted thousands of people to Christianity, including several Irish kings. Anglo-Saxon warlords made the process very difficult for Patrick and his converts, however. Coroticus, a king from western Britain, swept in and did extensive damage in Northern Ireland, killing many Christians or taking them prisoner.

Irish monasticism as implemented by Patrick continued to grow nonetheless. This monasticism was very similar to that throughout Europe. This form of Monasticism was based on a diocesan approach but within a few years it had become a monastery-based model with a bishop being head of the monastery. Sometime after the death of Patrick the church in Ireland was reorganised on a thoroughgoing monastic basis. The chief person becomes the Abbot not the Bishop. Monasteries were often the only available means of obtaining a useful education.

It is worthwhile noting that Patrick denounced slavery during his life, and the practice was discontinued shortly after his death.

To mark St Patrick’s Day you could always sing the hymn attributed to him found in TiS 478 ‘I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity’ or use the prayer below:

Christ be beside me,
Christ be before me,
Christ be behind me,
King of my heart.
Christ be within me,
Christ be below me,
Christ be above me,
never to part.

Christ on my right hand,
Christ on my left hand,
Christ all around me,
shield in the strife.
Christ in my sleeping,
Christ in my sitting,
Christ in my rising,
light of my life.

Christ be in all hearts thinking about me;
Christ be on all tongues telling of me;
Christ be the vision in eyes that see me;
in ears that hear me, Christ ever be.

Ninian

We know very little about Ninian and even then the ‘facts’ are disputed. He was reputedly the son of a chieftain who had converted to Christianity and he came from either Cumbria, or the South-West of Scotland. Christianity had spread during the time of Roman occupation and three Bishops from Britain had travelled to the Council of Arles in 314AD. Ninian, who would have been a Roman citizen, is said to have travelled to Rome to study. In Rome he was ordained and consecrated as a bishop, being sent back to his native Britain around 397AD, in order to evangelize his fellow Britons and take the Gospel to the Southern Picts, in what became, much later, Scotland.

Some historians believe that this work of conversion was done by Columba some 150 years later and not by Ninian. It is believed that Ninian was active from 397 to 431AD.

On arrival he is said to have had a monastery built on the north shore of the Solway Firth by masons from St. Martin’s Monastery in Tours, Gaul. This became known as the Great Monastery and it was from here that he, and those he gathered around him, set out on their missionary tours. It is possible that this building was known as Ad Candidam Casam, from the Latin meaning “At the White House”. It would appear to have been painted with a whitewash. It is possible that it was built with white stone, although this would have been unusual to that time. His monastery probably gave the name to the town now known as Whithorn.

The earliest reference to Ninian and to the White House is from Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, writing around 731AD, almost four hundred years later. In this he says that he is just passing on the knowledge that was traditional at the time of his writing. He does not claim that what he writes is factual. He tells us that Ninian called his monastery after St. Martin of Tours and it is possible that he had met Martin on his way back from Rome. Martin died in the same year that Ninian travelled back to Britain.

Part of Bede’s agenda was to say that Ninian had not been part of the Celtic Church, but loyal to the Roman way of being church.

The first history of Ninian was not written till the 12^th Century when Aelred, who was Abbot of the monastery at Rievaulx in Yorkshire, wrote his “Life of Saint Ninian”. By this time many monasteries and places associated with saints from the past had histories written in order to promote their Centre, in order to encourage the pilgrimage trade. It is thought that Aelred was asked by the Bishop of Galloway to write the history to promote his Bishopric.

In his history, Aelred says that Ninian performed a number of miracles both before and after his death. So it is possible that the history was to help secure his sainthood.

After the history was written, Whithorn and Ninian’s tomb, became a very important Centre of pilgrimage.

Written by Rev Peter Welsh

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Cyril & Methodius, Christian pioneer

The ninth century was perhaps the most active period of missionary activity in the Eastern (Orthodox) churches since apostolic times. Patriarch Photius chose two Greek brothers from Thessalonica, Constantine whose monastic name was Cyril, (826-869), and Methodius (?815-885) to initiate the conversion of the pagan Slavs – Moravians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Russians. They had grown up on the borders of these lands, and they knew the Slavonic language, amongst others. Cyril was a librarian and known as a philosopher; both were ordained priests. In 863 they set off for what is now the Czech lands with an invitation from the local prince and the blessing of the Byzantine emperor. In preparation for this venture, the brothers had translated the Gospels, the larger part of the New Testament and some of the Old, and the liturgical books into Slavonic, an enormous task, especially since they had to begin by inventing an alphabet, now known, in a developed form, as Glagolithic or Cyrillic. That is, they set out with the basic tools to build a church of peoples who did not know Christ. What is known as Church Slavonic is still the basic liturgical language of the Russian and related churches, and a great literature grew from it in the related languages.

Their methodology however was in contrast to that of Rome, whose missionaries had to teach their converts Latin before they could teach them anything else – and indeed there were clashes between missionaries of the two Christian centres. At this stage, however, the eastern and western wings believed themselves to belong to the one universal church, and the brothers travelled to Rome to place their mission under the Pope. Their exceptional approach and their church books received his blessing, but sadly, under that pope’s successor, and under German Catholic influence back in Moravia, the old Latin approach was enforced, and the saints’ work eradicated soon after Methodius died. However, the seeds had been sown, and bore fruit especially in Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, whose rulers consciously chose Cyril and Methodius’s way. Rightly are they know as the ‘apostles of the Slavs’. Success took a long time, and was largely achieved by decision of tsars and princes. Some half-convinced Greek missionaries used Greek, which was no more understandable to the Bulgars than Latin; in Romania, a Latin-based culture, the Slavonic influence is still mixed with the Latin in the Orthodox Church.

The younger brother Cyril died in Rome (he became a monk in 868 just before his death on February 14th, 869) and is buried there. Methodius had been made a bishop by the pope (ca 870) for his return to Moravian lands after their embassy to Rome. He was imprisoned for two years by rival church authorities, and endured many years of theological and ecclesiastical disputes. He died in Moravia. Their pupils, however, carried on the work into further lands, paving the way for their declaration as co-Patrons of Europe, with St Benedict, by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

By Rev Dr Robert Gribben

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Friedrich Schleiermacher, Christian thinker

Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was unquestionably the most influential Protestant theologian of the nineteenth century, so much so that he has been called ‘the father of modern Protestant theology’. The word ‘modern’ here is a technical term. It does not mean the latest, but rather is a synonym for, in this case, a new theological system made necessary by the widespread collapse of classical theology initiated by the human centred strictures of the European Enlightenment, which had reduced religion to the knowledge of God in terms of arguments for his existence, or more exactly, to natural theology and to morality.

To this end, Schleiermacher began his apologetic (‘apologetic’ is a positive word meaning ‘making a statement on behalf of’) endeavour by publishing a book he called “ On Religion, Speeches to its Cultured Despisers” (1799). Here, he attempted to win back the educated classes to a serious encounter with religion, which he defines as ‘a sense and taste for the infinite’, a foundation independent of all theological dogma. He contended that religion was based on intuition and ‘feeling’, by which he meant not subjective emotion but an experience of ‘absolute dependence’, the impact of the universe upon us in the depths of our being which transcends subject and object. In this respect, Schleiermacher wanted to affirm that although Christianity is the highest of the religions, it is not the only true one.

In 1809 he became Dean of the theological faculty in the newly founded University of Berlin. By this time he was recognised as a stirring and convincing preacher. From 1819 he was chiefly occupied with his most important work, “The Christian Faith”. The title is significant; not “The Doctrine of God”, since what is positively given in the world is the Christian faith as such. That is to say, for Schleiermacher you do not first have to decide about the truths or untruths of religion in general or Christianity in particular. Rather we find Christianity given as an empirical fact in history, and only then do we have to describe the meaning of its symbols.

When he explains why he thinks Christianity is the highest manifestation of the essence of religion, Schleiermacher says it is because Christianity has two defining characteristics. The first is what he calls ethical monotheism, namely a dependence on God as the giver of the law which reveals the goal towards which we have to strive. The second is that everything is related to salvation by Jesus of Nazareth. Since this One possesses the fully developed religious consciousness, he does not need salvation. So he qualifies supremely as being the Saviour.

The import of Schleiermacher’s theology is that he subjects Christianity to a concept of religion which at least in intent is not derived from Christianity but from the whole panorama of world’s religions. Two significant consequences follow from this foundation, both exemplifying what are essentially the presuppositions of Modernity. First, his method is always to move from the general to the particular, and second, he insisted that knowledge and action are consequences of religious experience; they are not the essence of religion. It is readily apparent how successful Schleiermacher has been since these principles continue to inform modern Protestant liberal Christianity, despite their being radically called into question by the prevailing theological concerns of most of the twentieth century.

Contributed by Bruce Barber

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Simeon & Anna, witnesses to Jesus

Simeon and Anna appear in the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Forty days after his birth and according to the Law, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem so the he might be named, and Mary could undergo the Rite of Purification of the mother.

When they entered the Temple, there were two people who recognised God’s son. Faith was not dead in Israel, there was still a remnant.

We are first of all introduced to Simeon. We are told he is a righteous and devout man who was waiting for God to deliver Israel. Luke tells us that Simeon had the Holy Spirit upon him and that he had been told he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Therefore, the Holy Spirit had prompted him to come to the Temple because God’s Messiah had come.

Upon seeing Jesus, he took him in his arms and speaks a prophecy. This has become known as the ‘Nunc Dimittis’, from the first words of its Latin translation, ‘now dismiss’. Simeon was ready to die. He had seen the Messiah, God’s salvation.

Simeon was familiar with the scriptures and his insight flowed from this knowledge. He was referring to a passage from Isaiah about waiting for the restoration of Jerusalem; for the coming of the Messiah, the Christ, who God had promised. Jews of that time had taken the scriptural prophecies to mean that they, the Jews; either those who kept the Torah or those born Jews, would be saved, but they had not recognised that God spoke about him bringing salvation to the whole world, Jew and Gentile. In giving the prophecy of Simeon, Luke is letting his non-Jewish listeners know that Christ came to save all who believe. Simeon tells Mary that although the offer of salvation is for all peoples, it will not be received by everyone. Luke uses this theme throughout his Gospel.

The second person we meet is Anna. Anna means grace. She is called ‘Daughter of Penuel’. Penuel is the place where Jacob wrestled with the angel and means ‘I have seen Gods face, yet my life is preserved.’

Anna we are told is an elderly woman. She is either 84 years old or a widow for 84 years which would make her over 100 years old. She is described as a prophet and had given her life to prayer and fasting, both night and day. We are told she never left the Temple. Anna thanked God and then told everyone about the Messiah.

There is much we can learn from these two elderly saints. While the authorities carried on with their religious duties these two prayerful people recognised in Jesus that the Messiah had come to the Temple. Simeon tells us that the challenge of Christ causes people to reveal their true attitudes. Some will speak against the sign of God’s love, it searches their hearts, some will be scandalised by a salvation that can only be achieved by way of a cross.

Simeon can now depart this life in peace, but Anna wants everyone to know that the Messiah has come and had come for all who receive him.

Rev Peter Welsh

These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.

Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.

Lesslie Newbigin, Christian thinker

The Right Reverend James Edward Lesslie Newbigin, CBE (1909-1998).

Newbigin was born 8 December 1909 in Northumbria (North Britain) to a devout Christian family. This was not a faith he shared, for during his time at boarding school he had “abandoned the Christian assumptions of [his] home and childhood.” This changed when he attended Cambridge University and became a member of the Student Christian Movement. At the end of his first year of study Newbigin spent his summer at a Quaker service center in South Wales, one that catered to the miners of the region. In the midst of the hardship he witnessed, Newbigin had a vision,

“a vision of the cross, but it was the cross spanning the space between heaven and earth, between ideals and present realities, and with arms that embraced the whole world. I saw it as something which reached down to the most hopeless and sordid of human misery and yet promised life and victory. I was sure that night, in a way I had never been before, that this was the clue that I must follow if I were to make any kind of sense of the world.”

Though a long quote, this vision became the central point of all that followed in Newbigin’s life and work.

Upon graduation from university, Newbigin became part of the SCM staff and here he met and married Helen Henderson (they would have three children). He would train for the ministry within the Presbyterian Church before becoming a missionary to India (1936). He served as a “district missionary” in Kanchipuram for the period of WWII and was instrumental in working towards the creation of the Church of South India. In 1947, he was appointed Bishop of Madurai and Ramnad.

Newbigin was instrumental in the ecumenical movement, working as General Secretary of the International Missionary Council (IMC) and drafter of many ecumenical statements. He was responsible for overseeing the integration of the IMC and the World Council of Churches (WCC). At the conclusion of his secondment to the WCC, Newbigin returned to India, and served as the Bishop in Madras until his retirement in 1975.

After returning to England, Newbigin taught theology of mission and ecumenical studies along with Hinduism at Birmingham University. He transferred his ordination to the United Reformed Church, and in 1980-88 became the minister of the URC, Winson Green, Birmingham. This church had had no minister for 40 years and was housed in a building that had stood condemned for 30 years. The neighbours were from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies, and the church stood opposite the gates of HM Prison Birmingham. This experience confirmed for Newbigin the missionary context of western society.

Newbigin was the keynote speaker and bible study leader at the first (and only) National Conference of Australian Churches held in Melbourne February 1960. 350 attended the 10 day conference and 175 participants (46% of the total number) were members of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational denominations in Australia. The conference signalled a renewed emphasis on the mission for the local congregation. In his closing remarks Newbigin stressed that the ecumenical encounter was, “for the sake of the gospel and the witness that you have to bear to the Australian nation.

The conference was timely and influenced the work of the Joint Commission on Church Union formed by the three denominations. The November 1962 report, The Church its Nature, Function and Ordering was a key document that led to the formation of the Uniting Church 15 years later. Members of the Joint Commission and participants in the conference included Alan Watson, J. F. Peter and John C. Alexander (Presbyterian), Frank Hambly, Hubert H. Trigge, and Bertram R. Wyllie (Methodist) and J. D. Northey (Congregational). Colin Williams and J. Davis McCaughey were also involved as conference members lived in at the 5 denominational colleges within the University of Melbourne. Harvey Perkins was conference secretary and with others continued to provide leadership in the ecumenical movement in the following decade.

Proposals for the united church included the recommendation that ordained ministers be named Presbyters, leadership to include bishops and that the consideration be given to forming a concordat with the Church of South India. It could be that Newbigin’s role as Bishop of the Church of South India contributed to this proposal. After further debate and consideration each of these proposals were not agreed to when the Basis of Union was adopted.

He initiated The Gospel and Our Culture Movement in the early 1980s, which would become better known as the missional church movement in the USA. Newbigin died in 1998, as one of the key and most creative ecumenical and missionary thinkers of the twentieth century. A prolific author, a good number of his books have stood the test of time, but if I had to recommend one as compulsory reading it would be his 1953 “Household of God.”

Rev Dr John Flett / Dean Eland