A nine-year-old girl from Hampshire has taken on the role of a bishop for the month of December according to the BBC News.
Ophelia Wells is looking after St John’s Church in Forton, Gosport, in a revival of a medieval custom. She is taking sermons throughout the month at the church, which is part of the Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth. Ophelia’s new rules include allowing children to ring church bells, and a free glass of wine for those who go to church for two weeks in a row. She said: “It’s going to be fun. Because I get to boss people around.”
The vicar of St John’s, the Reverend Carrie Thompson, said it showed going to church could be fun. “Church isn’t dead boring. We come to church also to have a laugh and have fun, and enjoy ourselves and enjoy one another’s company,” she said.
She said it is a “really old tradition” associated with St Nicholas Day, which takes place on 6 December. “St Nicholas is the patron of all sorts of things, sailors and the city of Portsmouth, but most importantly, children,” Ms Thompson said. “In the Middle Ages in England there was this great tradition that on the feast of St Nicholas, in all cathedrals and lots of the parish churches, a child, the smallest chorister of the choir, became the bishop. “They threw out the bishop and all the canons and the kids took over.”
HT to OCICBW.
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