February 3 - London
Arrived around noon today into Heathrow, and caught a cab to the hotel with two ELCA bishops. About an hour later we met with the whole delegation for our "briefing." We learned about our schedule for the next few days in London, and had an introduction to our evening event: a visit to the International Student Center, a housing facility for post-graduate students studying in London, which also houses the Lutheran Council of Great Britain.
We arrived around 4:30 and met our hosts, pastors from the Lutheran churches in London. Then came my first surprise: they were, none of them, British! In fact, the one Lutheran pastor who serves a congregation of English speaking people is a young man from Oklahoma whose congregations has members from some 30 countries! All the others were leading churches with an ethnic identity, i.e. Pastor Maia and Camille from Sweden, Ilse from Denmark, Jurgen from Latvia, etc. etc. There were also representatives there from Finnish and Norwegian congregations in London. It seems that these countries (who all have state churches, or, churches that are recognized by the state and officially sanctioned) have a large number of folks from their countries who have settled (for a short time, or lifetime) in London. The church becomes a place where these ethnic people can gather to hear their native language and share their culture in their own worship. Due to the language being spoken, there are very few from outside those communities who join those churches! But, until they start hearing English spoken at the coffee hour, said one pastor, they’ll keep serving their specific populations.
One of the interesting things I learned tonight was about the history of Lutherans in Great Britain. You might think that it is recent, since England has had the Church of England since Henry VIII! But actually, Henry helped solidify a symbol of Lutheran presence in England way back in the 1500’s, just after Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door at Wittenberg. Henry wrote an article defending the church’s practice of offering 7 sacraments (rather than only the two which Luther preferred: Baptism and Holy Communion.) Because of this stand, the Pope bestowed the title, Fides Defensor (Defender of the Faith) on King Henry, and it has been passed along to every monarch of England since the 1500’s. Even the coins of today note “DF” on their face, and remind us that Luther and Henry VIII were living out their histories at the same time (not to mention Christopher Columbus) in different parts of the world! Cool.
Following this conversation we had some time to mix and mingle and I met Bishop Jana Jeruma-Grinberga, the newly-consecrated bishop of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain. Always good to spend some time speaking with other women clergy!
Tomorrow we start early at Lambeth Palace, the place where the Archbishop of Canterbury will meet with us. Hopefully I’ll be more awake for that event than I am right now. Signing off! Pastor Susan