The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius annual conference took place from 28 to 30 August at St Stephen’s House in Oxford.
The Fellowship is a Charity and Network in Association of CTE and has been in existence for 100 years. Its chief aim is to enable Christians who wish to pray and work for a deeper understanding and closer cooperation between believers of East and West. (The East-West divide refers to the great schism of 1054 when the Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated from the church in Rome. This has led, more or less, to parallel theologising and ecclesiastical life over the past thousand years.) The Fellowship maintains an information service for those wanting to discover more about the Orthodox Church in Britain today in its various forms and makes a number of grants to scholars.
This year’s conference was entitled The Church in the Contemporary World. It brought together a wide range of Orthodox and other speakers on topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Christian witness in an era of environmental crisis. An academic from an Orthodox background, Dr Lauren Morry (University of Oxford), shared some of her doctoral work on interfaith relationships at local level in the Diocese of Birmingham. She reminded delegates, including clergy from Orthodox, Anglican and Catholic traditions as well as lay people from a variety of churches, that interfaith engagement often happens in the everyday relational spaces of the high street, such as shops and cafes. She told encouraging stories of how Muslims and Christians were discovering each other and working together to help the poorest in their community.
Brendan Metcalfe, CEO of Friends of the Holy Land, spoke powerfully on how Palestinians in the West Bank were facing a very challenging situation since the conflict in Gaza began in October last year. Mass unemployment, severe restrictions on movement, limited power and water connectivity and a seemingly unlikely peace agreement means that Palestinian Christians are under great threat. Friends of the Holy Land (a Charity and Network in Association with CTE) helps with housing, education and employment schemes for young Palestinians and ensures that they are not forgotten. Due to mass emigration, Palestinian Christians make up a small percentage of Israel’s population. Whilst there are different traditions there is much work happening together.
Find out more about the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius.