Irish Times Notes13 May 19

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

General Synod meets in Derry

The General Synod 2019 will open in in the Millennium Forum, Derry, next Thursday and continue until Saturday 18 May.

A General Synod website will carry reports, news items and photographs to give a flavour of the life of the annual meeting of Synod. This will allow those who are not attending the Synod, and visitors from the wider world, to keep in touch with developments. There will also be an audio broadcast during Synod. The hashtag #coigs will be used for Facebook and Twitter as well as other social media outlets. It is hoped that many will take the time to visit each section of the website to find out more about the ongoing work and mission of the Church of Ireland as reflected in the General Synod meeting.

The Book of Reports, which details the work of the Standing Committee of the General Synod, the Representative Church Body and their various committees and commissions over the last year is posted on the website. As well as being an essential tool for following the proceedings of the Synod, its contents, which will subsequently be published in the Journal of the General Synod, are a critical record of the life and witness of much of the Church of Ireland.

The website will also carry details of bills and motions which will be debated among which will be liturgical bills to permit Holy Communion by extension for those unable to be present at the public celebration, and to make provision for the Service of Prayer and Naming and the Funeral Service in cases of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. There will also be a bill to unite the dioceses of Tuam and Limerick. However, should his bill be passed it will have to be ratified by both diocesan synods and even then will not come into effect until there is an episcopal vacancy.

As always the Synod will begin with a Presidential Address which provides an opportunity for the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Richard Clarke, as President of the Synod, to reflect on aspects of the life of the Church and the society in which it ‘lives, moves and has its being’.

This will be the final General Synod for the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, the Rt Revd Ken Good, who will retire thereafter. Bishop Good was elected to Derry and Raphoe by the House of Bishop in 2002. A native of Cork, he has served in the dioceses of Down, Cork, Glendalough and Dromore since his ordination in 1977.

Tomorrow (Sunday) the Archbishop of Dublin will be in Cambridge where he will preach at Evensong in St John’s College to mark the 150th anniversary of the College Chapel.

The official launch and first commissioning service for Dublin Street Pastors will take place on Wednesday at 7.30 pm in Christ Church Cathedral. Dublin. Street Pastors, as a local initiative of the global Street Pastor movement, seeks to mobilise Christian volunteers from different churches to engage relevantly with issues of social vulnerability and substance misuse, by facilitating training and organisation enabling volunteers to effectively care, listen to, and offer help to those who may be at risk in the context of the Dublin’s night time economy. The Revd Les Isaac, pioneer of the Street Pastors movement and founder of Ascension Trust, will be one of the evening’s featured speakers, and the first trainee cohort to be commissioned at the service represents the range of Christian churches across Dublin.