Advance notice of Bournemouth Weekend of Worship and Orthodox Spirituality: Friday evening 24th to Sunday 26th September 2010. Following various discussions over several years on how best to help the spiritual growth of new church members and members of the British Orthodox Fellowship, it has been agreed to hold two weekend retreats each year in spring and autumn. The general idea of the first one is to give people a taste of congregational worship involving some of the monastic hours of prayer as well as both Evening and Morning Incense and the Divine Liturgy and also to provide a general introduction to several areas of Orthodox spirituality.

Further information on this weekend, including booking forms, should be available in approximately two weeks’ time from: [email protected]

On 25 May, 2010, Abba Seraphim received at the Church Secretariat in Charlton, Deacon Habtu Ghebre-Ab, Professor of History at the University of Cincinatti and one of the board of the St. Athanasios Charitable Society (SACS) and “In Chains for Christ,”  the Voice of the Persecuted Church in Eritrea.  The Professor was in the UK attending a peace conference in Brighton but travelled to London to meet with Abba Seraphim. They discussed issues relating to the current state of the Eritrean Orthodox Church and the imprisonment of Abune Antonios, the canonical Patriarch, as well as areas of future support and co-operation.

On his way to the airport on 24 May, Abba Seraphim called at the home of Miss Effa, one of the first deaconesses to be ordained by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III. Although now frail and elderly Miss Effa is a devout witness to the Orthodox faith and has donated her large house in Heliopolis to the church, which uses it to provide a home for Coptic Orthodox girls living away from home to study for their degrees in Cairo. A number of the students and the deaconesses who take care of them joined Miss Effa to greet Abba Seraphim.

Abba Seraphim assisted at the Divine Liturgy for the Feast of Pentecost in St. Mark’s Cathedral, Abbesseya, Cairo, on 23 May 2010. During the Divine Liturgy His Holiness Pope Shenouda III ordained a number of new priests for both the churches in Cairo and those in the lands of emigration. These included Father Boula to work alongside Fr. Kyrillos in Abagaya, where Abba Seraphim and other British Orthodox members have been regular visitors; and Fr. Mina for the Coptic Orthodox Parish of St. Mary & Archangel Mikhael at Golders Green.

In the afternoon, Abba Seraphim, accompanied by Shenouda Mamdouh and his wife Mary, visited the Monastery of St. Macarios (Deir Abu Maqar) in the Wadi al Natrun to pray at the shrines of the three St. Makarios, St. John the Short, the 49 Martyrs of Sheheet and the more recently discovered relics of St. John the Baptist and the Prophet Elijah. They were warmly received by the fathers and entertained to lunch. Returning to Cairo Abba Seraphim invited the family of his host, Mr. Mamdouh Abdou to a Nile felucca trip.

Fr Anthony Clements, the British Orthodox General Priest in Scotland, assisted Fr. Karas Anba Bishoy and Fr.Seraphim El Souriani in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy at the Coptic Cathedral of St. George & St. Athanasios in Newcastle on the Feast of Pentecost (23 May). The large congregation included not only expatriate Egyptians and Sudanese, but also worshippers from Iraq and Eritrea, as well as a large group of Coptic Canadian students in Britain to attend Newcastle university. His Grace Bishop Antony was not present as he was attending the annual Pentecost meeting of the Holy Synod in Cairo.