We should actually change the description of our blog – since yesterday it’s no longer a blog of two Europeans fascinated with the Episcopal Church, but a blog of two members of the Episcopal Church. Last Sunday Bishop Pierre Whalon received us into the Episcopal church community. It took place at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Waterloo, Belgium. This is our nearest Episcopal parish, even though it’s a considerable distance of 200 km away.
Perhaps this doesn’t sound very well, but we cannot actually write that we have pondered on this step for a long time. Commitment to the Episcopal Church has become for us, almost without us noticing it, something rather obvious. What remained was to choose a suitable occasion to formalize it. It occurred last week when we read on Facebook that the parish in Waterloo was to be visited by the Bishop. We immediately wrote to him and after a few days received his response:
We will receive you into the Episcopal Church this Sunday 11am in All Saints Waterloo Belgium. See you soon.
During the next few days we tried to convince ourselves that it’s a pure formality, for what will change in our lives? We certainly won’t travel 400 km each Sunday, so the congregation in whose liturgical life we will participate on the daily basis will remain St. John and St. Philip’s in the Hague , which belongs to the Church of England, and the ecumenical community where Pradusz ministers as a pastor, Kritische Gemeente IJmond . And of course we will continue traveling to Poland in order to support and facilitate the development of the Polish Episcopal Network . From a certain point of view nothing will thus change. Yet anxiety would grow. In the first place because it were to be at the same time our first encounter with a true Episcopal parish community. What will happen if we’re disappointed, if we won’t feel good there, if what we do won’t be received with understanding? Can you join a church with clean conscience and think deep down that you would like to escape from that place, the sooner the better?
We arrived in Waterloo at 10 o’clock. It turned out that the church is located nearby the famous battlefield. Even before we could introduce ourselves we were greeted very friendly. After meeting the Bishop and the rector, the Rev. Sunny Hallanan, and doing what had to be done in respect of administration, we sat in the church. The service followed the order we had known for years – from the internet and the liturgical of the Polish Episcopal Network. After the sermon came the long awaited moment. Since we both had been confirmed before, the reception itself was relatively short and rather simple (presentation and examination of the candidates, renewal of the baptismal covenant and prayers for the candidates), yet it was probably its simplicity that made it so powerful. When we thought we would be sent back to our seats, Bishop Pierre asked us to turn around and face the congregation and introduced us in a few words. We won’t quote his cordial and flattering words. And we don’t think they were directed only to us, but in a sense to all involved in the Polish Episcopal Network, whether they are considering to follow in our footsteps or want to continue supporting us while remaining members of other churches. So we realize that yesterday we received compliments that you all earned. But we cannot deny that it was a moment of satisfaction for all those long and often night hours of translating, for the tiering travels, and above all for the questions that was bothering us before the Polish Episcopal Network was established, when we were writing this blog: what do we do this all for?
After the service came the time to meet the parishioners and see Waterloo. The doubts that bothered us were immediately dispelled. The congregation really consists of the most kind, hospitable and cordial people. One can hardly not feel at home there immedietely. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Brussels one Sunday, you have to visit All Saints’. We in any case case will try to be there as often as possible.
On a Facebook group there developed today a discussion on the sensibility of belonging to an institutional church. Is it really necessary, is it worthwhile to look for a congregation for oneself and risk disappointment? And is it at all possible to find a church with which one can identify, say that it is truly their? These questions, of course, must be answered by each of us alone. And what is our answer? Zbigniew Herbert, a famous Polish poet, wrote in his poem “U wrót doliny” that “we will be saved alone”. We can’t deny that sometimes one wishes it to be true, and yet at the heart of Christianity lies community. This community is neither a nameless mass nor an army obedient to the orders of its infallible commander. It is a community of people who have heard a voice – still and unimposing, yet firm – and decided to follow it, because they felt that this voice speaks to the deepest, most authentic layers of their being, that it enlivens them, motivates to action. Being in such a community is a challenge. Its essence consists not in befriending all its members. Everyone has the right, and even the duty, to define their own boundaries and protect them. A church community is not the same as a circle of friends. No one can be forced to more intimacy that they themselves consider appropriate. And yet we don’t walk alone. We are together even if there is a great distance between us; more, if there are epochs between us. We are together even when it’s difficult for us to define what this “together” actually means. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corinthians 10:17) The meaning of St. Paul’s words cannot be discovered otherwise but in community. Experiences of yesterday without a doubt revealed to us its new important dimension…
