More than 1000 people attended the ordination of Father Henry Bull as the new suffragan bishop of the Anglican Church in the Northern Division.

He was ordained on Sunday (10 December) under a large corrugated iron roof, held up by scaffolding because the journey to Holy Trinity Cathedral in Suva would have been too difficult for his supporters.

Anglican Taonga, the official news service of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, put it this way: "Around those parts, many folk are subsistence farmers - and for them, a long and complicated trip to Suva, on the far side of Fiji's other main island, Viti Levu, for an ordination in Holy Trinity Cathedral was possible in theory, maybe - but so too, is flying to the moon."

Henry Bull was born and raised on the remote coast of Vanua Levu. And his ministry radiates from the Church of The Holy Cross in Dreketi - which he helped build.

"I wanted the people to know that the real church is not the buildings - but they themselves, the living stones," he told Anglican Taonga.

Archbishop Winston Halapua, the Bishop of Polynesia, said that the idea that Episcopal ordinations have to be done in cathedrals "is what has trapped us in the past."

He said: "What we have seen today is that where the people are - that's like a cathedral. This is eye-opening for the diocese."

Archbishop Philip Richardson, the senior bishop of the New Zealand dioceses, commented: "One of the great characteristics of Anglican leadership is a sense of being incarnated in community - being really embedded and immersed in community."

Source

• ANS
• Anglican Taonga
• Fiji Times
• Image: Anglican Taonga

Fijians are among the most vulnerable to climate change according to the website National Climate Justice.

The seven-day consultation, Encountering God in the Storm is being held in Fiji at the invitation of the Archbishop Winston Halapua, bishop of Polynesia.

"One of the aims of the consultation is to encourage Anglican leaders worldwide to grapple more vigorously with climate justice." said the United Society's global relations director, Rachel Parry.

It is aimed at helping to raise the issue on political agendas and inspiring the church to help communities in devising local responses.

Some 676 of Fiji's villages are at risk of flooding because of rising sea levels. And several communities have already been forced to relocate.

"The impact is not just economic - with ocean acidification killing fish stocks and salt water ruining farmland but cultural because ancestral lands are being destroyed," the United Society said in a statement.

"The growing intensity and frequency of storms and flooding is predicted to result in increases in drought, affecting land, food and water security. This year alone the nation has contended with Cyclone Winston and numerous earthquakes."

National Climate Justice is a website that site seeks to deepen consideration of ethics and justice issues when formulating national climate policy.

It is a joint project of Widener University School of Law's Environmental Law Center and the School of Planning and Architecture, University of Auckland.

Source

• nationalclimatejustice.org
• episcopaldigitalnetwork.com
• Image: screen shot youtube.com