One imagines that most of the world’s Anglican Primates are pretty close to having their bags packed and parked near the front door. Others are perhaps even now boarding flights and winging their way to cold and damp England. They’ve been invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to a Primates’ Meeting. There hasn’t been one for four years. The Primates are to begin meetings on Monday, 11 JAN. If they get to England early and find themselves with time on their hands, perhaps they will take a moment to wander the grounds at Canterbury Cathedral and venture to see a visiting Roman Catholic relic, the crosier of Pope Gregory I. Pope Gregory sent Augustine to England to bring about the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in the early 6th Century.
The carved ivory crosier head, the shepherd’s crook, is on loan to the Cathedral from the religious order of monks of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome. The Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, the Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, says that the crosier was loaned for display in the cathedral’s crypt as a sign of ecumenical encouragement. The crosier also is representative of a spiritual bond of both the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans in England.
The crozier will be on display this weekend from 10 am until 4 pm on Saturday, 9 JAN and also from Noon until 2 pm on Sunday, 10 JAN. It will then be on display again next weekend from 10 am until 4 pm on Saturday, 16 JAN and also from Noon until 2 pm on Sunday, 17 JAN.
The original story and the photo are from the Anglican Communion News Service.