Pentecost in our diocese was celebrated in a plethora of ways again this year.  

At St Paul's Anglican Church in Athens, Deacon Chris Saccali, Assistant Chaplain, preached on peristera, the dove referred to in the New Testament:

The congregation then sang the worship song Enemy of Apathy, and each verse was reflected on. Flames were represented by Aloe Vera flowers decorating the pulpit along with a cascade of blue and green doves. The celebrant Fr Bjorn of the Swedish Church gave the blessing in Swedish. 

The choir of Trinity College Dublin were at St Boniface, Antwerp for the Solemn Eucharist for Pentecost. They sang music by Palestrina, Chesnokov and Fauré, which was much appreciated by the over a hundred people who had gathered together in the church.  Chaplaincy member Ann talked of her enjoyment of the music, "A beautiful choir and a joy to the ear!"

At Pentecost Sunday in Bucharest, part of their reading from Acts 2 was given in no less than 6 languages - English, Romanian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hungarian and Russian. This was to symbolise the Good News spreading throughout the world.  It also served as a reminder that whatever language we speak, the Church across the globe has a unity in our common faith.

In another part of our diocese, Turkey, the Chaplain of Izmir, Fr James, was leading a group on the Seven Churches of Revelation pilgrimage.  Here they are, pictured with members of the congregation: 

At La Fustera Church in the Costa Blanca, which was adorned in red for Pentecost, the congregation made great efforts to wear something red, with one family even managing to give their dog a red outfit;

The chaplaincy of Acquitaine includes thirteen worship centres, from across a vast Chaplaincy approximately the size of Wales. They had a wonderful joint celebration, with 146 packed into the church at L’église Saint Martin, Monbazillac for a Communion service. Revd Angela Marshall shares a summary of the day:

“Preaching on the passage from Acts 2:1-21, Revd Tony Lomas reminded us that Pentecost is the birthday of the church worldwide. He also thanked everyone for sharing together in ministry over the past eight years.

We then went to claim our tables for our picnic lunches. Many of us have met across the chaplaincy on zoom meetings. For those of us ministering across the different worship centres, it was a good opportunity to renew fellowship with one another.

Following lunch there was an opportunity to go for a guided walk (although heavy rain intervened!), to meet new people or deepen friendships. Our thanks to the churches who had put together displays to tell us something of their life and ministry and guide our prayers for them.

At 3.30pm we worshipped more informally in the salle where David (Marshall), Tina and Tim led us. The music was coordinated by Phil Carr (Limeuil) who invited musicians from different centres to lead us in a song of worship.

A farewell litany for Tony was led by Tina and Tim and followed by the Bordeaux young people registering their thanks for his ministry in a song of blessing.

With Tony’s retirement, we now move into a time of vacancy. Our special focus of prayer is for Tina and Tim, our chaplaincy wardens who are ‘in charge’ during the vacancy."

Rev'd. Vinod Victor, Chaplain at the Anglican Church of Freiburg, describes their Pentecost Service;

"The truly multi-cultural and multi-lingual nature of ACF was celebrated at the Pentecost Sunday service where around 50 languages were used at the worship service. Readings were offered in about 25 languages, songs were sung and love and peace were shared in several other heart languages. The genuine Pentecost experience where each person who was present in the upper room heard the apostle preaching as though in their own language was replicated with people from all over the world being present. One of the worshippers emotionally quipped after the service, ‘We felt we were in our little village in Africa and this service was special and truly nostalgic for us’. An Iranian young person reading the Scriptures in Persian, the Lord’s prayer in Aramaic, the Caribbean Halleluiah, the Yoruba Wa Wa Emimimo sung in several languages, Laudate Dominum sung in people’s heart languages, the consecration of the elements in Malayalam, the African languages like Luganda, Swahili, Ibo and Kirundi, Wolof, the Asian languages Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Korean, Japanese, the classics Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Latin, the European and Latin American flavour with Spanish, Katalan, French, German, Peruvian and several other languages added to the flavour German and English provided to the service. The Welcome Banner had the word for Love in 32 different languages. The learning for us was this - the more open we are to the heart cultures of our neighbours, the more we celebrate as a community of grace."