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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Sunday 11 July


Saturday 4 September

Sunday 19 September

Thursday 30 September
 Bring and Share Lunch on the Lodge Terrace
followed by Choral Evensong with Rochester Cathedral Choir

BBQ at Holy Trinity

Bring and Share Lunch  on the Lodge Terrace

Chaplaincy Garden Party
FLOWERS IN CHURCH
If you would like to dedicate a flower arrangement in memory of a friend or loved one at either St Paul's Pro-Cathedral or Holy Trinity Church please contact the Chancellor or Chaplain.
BIRTHDAY BOOK When is your birthday?
We are in the process of compiling a birthday book in which your birthday (not date of birth) may be noted for a small donation of €1 each year. Your birthday will be included on the pew sheet for the appropriate week so that everyone in the Chaplaincy can include you in their prayers on your special day. The pages of the book will also be turned each day. Please contact Gaynor Felgate for further details and to have your name included.
Father Simon has already signed up. Who will be next?
WHAT ARE OUR CHURCHES ABOUT ?
Anglicanism is hard to pigeonhole: it's catholic without being Roman Catholic; it grew out of the Reformation without being Protestant. So, at the World Council of Churches, representatives of the 70 million Anglicans take their place alongside the Orthodox Churches and the Protestant Churches as a third of the member "blocks" (the Roman Church having chosen Observer status).
The Anglican tradition within which we stand has certain clear characteristics:
  • It is a Biblical Church. We believe the Bible "contains all things necessary to salvation" and as such is the rule and ultimate standard of faith. (In practice this means that even if much of our response to the circumstances of life and the world cannot derive from a scriptural blueprint, nothing contrary to the Bible's teaching may be regarded as Christian or required of Christians).
  • It is a sacramental Church. We enter the Church in Baptism and we celebrate the Eucharist, as Jesus commanded. (At the font we share in Jesus' death and resurrection by passing sacramentally with him through the deep waters of death and sharing the new life of Easter. At the altar we believe him to be really present in the elements of bread and wine.) His "body and blood" are elements of his life: a constantly renewed gift of the life we started in Baptism.
  • It is a traditional Church. As we reckon our Bishops to be successors of the Apostles, our Priests to be their local presence, our Deacons to be their co-workers and successors of the first Deacons in Jerusalem, so we understand ourselves to be an authentic branch of the Universal (the catholic) Church. This understanding extends to doctrine, in which we accept the teachings of the ancient Councils and understand the traditional formulae of the Church (especially the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds) to be normative expressions of faith.
  • It is a thinking Church. Tradition guides us - and sometimes recalls us - to the truth, but is itself an organism which can develop as each succeeding generation strives to interpret the faith afresh in an ever-changing world.
This means
  • ....that you'll find the Bible read and preached about, and a Bible Study group which meets regularly.
  • ....that our worship is deliberately and definitely based on the Eucharist.
  • ....that we derive our identity from our links with the universal Church through our Bishop and our diocese.
  • ....that we are an open Church, accepting that, though we hold a common faith, there may be differences in the way we understand its details and express it.
General Information