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Magazine of the Jerusalem and the Middle East Church Association Bible Lands Winter 2017/18 Magazine of the Jerusalem and the Middle East Church Association www.jmeca.org.uk & TH M E M LE ID SA DL RU E E EA J S N T I D H I C O R C E U S H E C O L F A J P E O R C U S S I A P L E E M E H T Jerusalem Egypt & North Africa Cyprus & the Gulf Iran Archbishop of Canterbury visits the Holy Land ........................................ p4 Archbishop Suheil Dawani elected Primate .............................................. p6 Christians of Iraq .......................................................................................... p9 THE JERUSALEM AND Bible Lands Editor Letters, articles, comments are welcomed by the Editor: THE MIDDLE EAST CHURCH The Reverend Dr. Stephen W. Need ASSOCIATION Email: [email protected] The next issue will be published in May for (JMECA) Summer 2018. Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily Founded in 1887 those of the Association; therefore only signed articles ‘To encourage support in prayer, money and will be published. personal service for the religious and other JMECA Website www.jmeca.org.uk charitable work of the Episcopal church in The site has information for each of the four Dioceses Jerusalem and the Middle East’. with links to the websites of each one and regular Reg. Charity no. 1158476 updates of Middle East news. www.jmeca.org.uk Patron The Most Reverend and Right Honourable THE CENTRAL SYNOD OF THE PROVINCE The Archbishop of Canterbury President Chairman The Most Revd Suheil Dawani Mr. Huw Thomas Secretary Administrator Mrs. Georgia Katsantonis Mrs. Shirley Eason [email protected] Assistant: Mrs. Shirley Atkins Treasurer 1 Hart House, The Hart The Reverend Canon William Schwartz. Farnham GU9 7HJ, Surrey. [email protected] Jerusalem Office days: Monday to Friday, 9.30am – 2.00pm. The Most Revd Suheil Dawani Tel/Fax 01252 726994 St George’s Cathedral Close, PO Box 1248, The Council of JMECA delegates the administration Jerusalem Tel: +972 2 6272932 of its assets to a Standing Committee which is [email protected] THE JERUSALEM AND THE EAST MISSION TRUST website: www.j-diocese.org LIMITED (JEMT) Iran Administrator as above Vicar General Directors The Revd Dr Albert Walters Mr. John Clark (Chairman) Egypt Dr. Clare Amos The Rt Revd Mouneer Anis Mr. Andrew Hill All Saints Cathedral, PO Box 87, Distribution Zamalek, Mr. John G Pringle (Hon Treasurer) Cairo, Egypt Tel: +20 2 2738 0821 The Reverend Dr. William Taylor [email protected] Mr. David Wright OBE website: www.dioceseofegypt.org The Reverend Canon Hugh Wybrew The Reverend Canon Dr Matthew Rhodes Cyprus and the Gulf The Rt. Revd. Michael Lewis Consultants Diocesean Office, PO Box 22075, 1517 Nicosia Tel: +357 22671220 The Reverend Dr. Stephen W. Need The Bishop’s PA Mr. Richard Owens OBE Mrs. Georgia Katsantonis Sir Harold Walker KCMG [email protected] website: www.cypgulf.org 2 Mr John Clark, chairman of Jerusalem and the East Mission Trust (JEMT) writes: Bible Lands readers will be aware that there was no issue of So this issue of Bible Lands covers major events in the magazine this summer. The reason was that we had not the four dioceses over the past year. The cover photo been able to find a successor to Canon Tim Biles as Editor marks the election at the Central Synod meeting in May in time to prepare that edition. But now I am very pleased to of Archbishop Suheil as President Bishop, following report that the Revd Dr Stephen Need has agreed to take Archbishop Mouneer’s ten years of dedicated service. on the role of Bible Lands Editor and Consultant to JMECA. Before that meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury paid a significant and lengthy pastoral visit to the Christians We owe a great deal to Tim Biles. Eleven years ago he of Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories and Israel. News agreed to take on the editing of Bible Lands for three years from Cyprus and the Gulf focuses on Iraq with a report which extended to ten! He was an experienced author and from JMECA Trustee, William Taylor, of a visit to an area editor with a long knowledge of the Church in the Middle previously occupied by ISIS while Archdeacon Bill Schwartz East and the Sudan. He redesigned the magazine into its reports on St George’s Baghdad. A4 full colour format and with his own frequent visits to Jerusalem and the Holy Land was able to add his personal In Egypt there are changes in leadership with the election experience to the news and reflections he gleaned from of a new Bishop the Rt Revd Samy Fawzy Shehata for North many individuals and news sources. Thank you, Tim, for Africa and the resignation of Bishop Grant LeMarquand all that you have done in support of the Christians of the as Bishop of the Horn of Africa. News from Iran is limited Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. but the Central Synod elected the Revd Dr Albert Walters to succeed Bishop Azad Marshall as Vicar-General for Stephen Need also Iran. Bishop Azad had served from 2004 to 2017 as Vicar- brings long experience General, Bishop and then Vicar-General again – a long of the Middle East, period of dedicated and demanding service. And the particularly of the daughter of a former bishop is to be consecrated a bishop Diocese of Jerusalem, in the Church of England. where he was ordained in 2008, to the editorial A major role for JMECA is to provide financial support for role. With a doctorate the Episcopal Church in the region. This year £257,000 from King’s College of general and specific grants was made to the four London, Stephen dioceses. We are seeking to increase general gifts, so has served as Senior I hope that the news and reflection in this issue will Lecturer, Director of encourage readers to give support to the Christians Studies and from 2005- of the Province and to hold them in prayer. 11 Dean of St George’s John Clark College, Jerusalem, the Anglican Communion’s Centre for Holy Land Studies. He has lectured in theology at colleges in Chichester and Southampton and is the author of six books on the New Testament and the early centuries of the Church. He is also an accomplished pianist. We are very grateful for his willingness to take on the editorship. 3 Diocese of Jerusalem Jerusalem The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, a diocese of the worldwide Anglican Communion, extends over five countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel, within the Province of Jerusalem and the Archbishop Suheil Dawani Suheil Dawani Archbishop Middle East. There are 27 parishes that minister to the needs of their communities, centered on the Cathedral Church of St. George the Martyr, Syria Lebanon in Jerusalem. The diocese supports 35 institutions, which include hospitals, clinics, kindergartens and schools, vocational training programmes, as Palestine well as institutions for the deaf, the & Israel disabled and the elderly, reaching out to Jordan interfaith neighbours in mutual respect and cooperation. Archbishop of Canterbury visits the Holy Land In May this year the Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverend Justin Welby and his wife Caroline made a ten-day visit to the Holy Land. One of the next visit was the Western or Walling Wall where the longer visits of an Archbishop of Canterbury to the Archbishop prayed with the Chief Rabbi from the UK, region in recent years, it covered a significant amount Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. They then went together to Yad of ground. The Archbishop and Mrs Welby were Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in West Jerusalem, hosted by the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem the where they both made speeches in an extremely Most Reverend Suheil Dawani and his wife Shafeeqa sensitive context. who travelled with them. Throughout the time, the Archbishop’s trip included The focus of the trip was on visiting some of the meetings with key local leaders including the Prime Holy Places as well as on Anglican, ecumenical Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the President and interfaith meetings encouraging justice, peace of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, and the Palestinian President, and reconciliation in the area. Archbishop Justin Mahmoud Abbas. The Archbishop also met with emphasised his role as a listener more than once as Israel’s Chief Rabbis as well as with Palestinian Moslem he made his way through some of the most complex and Christian leaders. and confusing political landscape of the Middle East. One key feature of the ten-day trip was a day Beginning in Jordan, Archbishop Welby met with King in Gaza, so troubled Abdullah in Amman as well as with Syrian and Iraqi in recent years by the refugees at the Zaatari camp and at St. Paul’s Church, political events in which Ashrafiyeh. He also spent time at the Holy Land it has been engulfed. Institute for the Deaf in Salt. He then crossed into the The Archbishop visited West Bank and Israel making his way up to Jerusalem the Anglican Ahli Arab where the visit began in the Old City. The Archbishop hospital and also the walked the Via Dolorosa following the Stations of local St. John’s Eye the Cross and concluded in the Church of the Holy Hospital. In both places Sepulchre where he was welcomed by the Greek he met with staff and Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilus patients. III. Archbishop Justin then proceeded to the Haram esh-Sharif, the area where the Moslem Dome of the In Jerusalem, one of the key visits was to the Princess Rock stands, and met with Moslem leaders there.
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