Day of prayer for Ukraine | CofE slavery links to be investigated
January 2022 #03
Welcome to this week’s European Churches Chronicle, your premier source for weekly news on churches in Europe. Free, in your inbox, every week.
News in brief.
Pope calls for day of prayer for peace in Ukraine. The pope called for a day of prayer on 26 January in response to the escalating risk of military conflict in Ukraine.
Church of England links to slavery to be investigated. The head of the Archbishops’ Racial Justice Commission in the Church of England has said that church memorials and art that may be associated with historic slavery will be reviewed in the next few years.
Miracle portrait returned to Flemish abbey after 370 years. The portrait of 11-year-old Joanna De Labaye was first given to the Saint Godelieve’s abbey in Bruges in the seventeenth century to thank the nuns of the abbey for nine days of prayers which were believed to have helped the girl recover from a life-threatening throat condition. The Flemish government has purchased the portrait from a private owner to see it returned to the abbey, which is in the process of being restored.
Spotlight on Naples.
Santa Chiara (Via S. Chiara, 49). This fourteenth-century cloister complex is famous for its gardens and decorative maiolica tiles. The church was originally decorated by frescoes by Giotto, but these, along with lavish decorations and frescoes from the eighteenth century were mostly destroyed during WWII.
Christ Church Anglican Church (Via S. Pasquale, 15b). Until the unification of Italy, Anglicans had only been able to hold services on consular premises. Permission to build an Anglican church in Naples came shortly after unification in 1861; and in recognition of British support for Italian unification, Giuseppe Garibaldi donated the land on which the Anglican church in Naples was built.
Saint John Bosco.
This week the Church celebrates the life of John Bosco, an Italian Roman Catholic priest, who, having grown up in poverty, worked to improve the lives of children in Turin in the late nineteenth century. His energetic involvement in establishing schools, orphanages and housing facilities in Turin made him immensely popular, but also brought him under suspicion from state authorities worried about the rise of socialism in the region.
Picture credits. Photograph of Naples by Janis Beitins | graphic design by European Churches Chronicle