Fr Stephen Weston (PP)

St Fursey, Sutton with Stalham

I encountered Orthodoxy for the first time in 1967 when training for being a Reader in the Church of England. Fr Andrew Bond’s Old Calendar magazine and his St George Orthodox Information Service helped me a lot. I had also been inspired by Archbishop Michael Ramsey’s vision of a reunited Catholic Christendom consisting of the Roman Church, the Orthodox Church and Anglicanism. I hoped to play a very small part in making this a reality. I had been taught that the Church of England had maintained the essence of Catholicity through the Reformation period and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher had said that the Church of England had no doctrine of is own but only that of the early undivided Church. Experience taught me that these statements were not true and at the same time my knowledge and experience of the Orthodox Church increased. By the 1990’s it was clear that it was better to belong to the Church founded by Our Lord when he was on earth (inspite of its many manmade problems) rather than something started by Henry VIII and established by Act of Parliament. Being able to belong to the Patriarchate of Antioch is an amazing privilege.