Jerusalem
and the Middle East
Church Association

Archaeologists work on the Queen of Sheba's palace, Samhuran, Oman

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Books

Obituaries

Celebration, tragedy and diversity

Momentous news. JMECA Secretary Vanessa Wells, who joined the Association in 1987, retires on 31 July. She will be much missed by all who know her. The Christmas ‘Bible Lands’ will have a tribute to her, and news of her successor.

This edition of ‘Bible Lands’ is unusual in having a report on Sudan, once part of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. In 1976 Bishop John Brown joined Archbishop Donald Coggan for the inaugural celebrations of the Province of Sudan. Thirty years later he looks back on ‘a great day out’.

The Revd Mark Cregan, led a Remembrance Service at El Alamein, attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. Good Friday was a day to remember too, in a very different way. Three Coptic churches were attacked and many people stabbed. Mark and the team from St Mark’s, Alexandria, worked hard to comfort their distressed Coptic brothers and sisters.

Dean Jim Doust was involved when Australian tourists were killed and injured in a bus accident, and in the aftermath of demonstrations by the Sudanese. Dean Alan Hayday writes of tragedy when a dhow sank off Bahrain.

Cyprus and the Gulf is an incredibly diverse Diocese, from Paphos with its retired British congregation, to the newest one in northern Cyprus attended mainly by African students, to Abu Dhabi, which plays host to some sixty congregations. The compound teems with worshippers from 5am until midnight on Fridays, and every weekday evening, with the ecstatic exuberance of Pentecostal groups competing with the measured chanting of Orthodox congregations or the drums and ululating of Ethiopians. I add my own report on the Church in Oman.

Truly the Holy Spirit of Pentecost is at work.

Omani Dhow