This year the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East is fifty years old. One of its original Dioceses, Egypt, has now develped into the Province of Alexandria. The first President Bishop of the original Province was Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, then Bishop of Iran. Exiled to Britain after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, his daughter Guli is now Bishop of Chelmsford. Here she shares her reflections on this Jubilee.
Fifty years in the context of the history of the Anglican Communion is a relatively short
period of time, within the scope of Christendom even shorter and in the life and turmoil of
the Middle East just a blip. However, these past fifty years are testament to the faithful and
persistent witness of this beloved and significant Province, which formed me and still
informs much of my ministerial life.
I was only 9 years old when the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East was
inaugurated in 1976 but I do have distinct memories of there being something major afoot in
the life of the Church. My father, Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, and Bishop in Iran at the time, was
having even more meetings than usual, travelling extensively and having long detailed
phone conversations sometimes from our living room. It was clear that there were to be
changes in the life of the Church, yet I had no understanding of the importance of theses
changes or how they would affect our church and our family.
The past 5 years as a Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England has have shown me how
structural change in parishes can be difficult and often painful. How much more for those
who led this major development in Anglican Presence in the Middle East. In rereading
some of my father’s written recollections, along with those of Bishop Handford and the late
Bishop Stopford, I am struck by the wisdom shown in complex negotiations and I cannot
help but wonder about the personal pressure they (and those close to them) lived through.
I know that my father was deeply conscious of the unique position of a province clustering
around the Anglican Presence and witness in Jerusalem. However, he was not
overwhelmed by a deference to it and was committed to ensuring the dignity and autonomy
of the other founding Dioceses of the Province.
Jerusalem, of course, with its presence in
the land of the Saviour’s birth with all the ecumenical interaction that would bring, but also
the newly founded Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf with its particular service to expatriate
communities, and Egypt with its important relations with the Coptic Church and a history of
British Missionaries, not forgetting (for him at least) the small pearl that was Iran.
The complexities of each Diocese were heightened by international geopolitics and, it ought
to be recognised, by the high levels of competitiveness within the differing characters in this
process. In all of it there was for my father a real desire that the authentic identities of the
various communities involved should be recognised, preserved and celebrated.
So it was that when the Archbishop of Canterbury ceded his Metropolitan Authority to the
Central Synod of the Province something new was created. Not just a new Province but a
different way of being Anglican. Following the American and Scottish pattern there was not
to be an Archbishop but a President Bishop holding the office for a maximum of two 5 year
terms. My father felt strongly that this structure honoured all the various complexities which
the Province had inherited, allowing for a new form of independence for four Dioceses
united around a Central Synod comprised of equal numbers of lay and ordained
representatives.
He was elected the first President Bishop and always maintained that his
position was primarily as President of that Central Synod, the repository of metropolitan
authority. Honesty requires me to say that in his latter years my father was deeply pained by
the decisions to return to an Archiepiscopal model of leadership. During his tenure as thefirst President Bishop he neither sought such a title for himself nor saw any lack in his
colleagues for not having it.
In conclusion, I always consider it the highest honour that at my consecration as a bishop, in
Canterbury Cathedral, another former Bishop in Iran and Primate of the Province, Bishop
Iraj Mottahedeh, was the preacher. In his very person, slight of stature, rooted in the
theology of his inheritance, generous in his estimation of others, I see the Province of
Jerusalem and the Middle East in microcosm: small, wise and generous.
My father had a
short prayer which he used to say faithfully at the half way point of his daily walk in
Basingstoke where he and my mother lived for 25 years. I say it often and I offer it now in
thanksgiving for the Province and in blessing for its future:
May the Name of the Lord be blessed in the Past
May the Name of the Lord be blessed in the Present
May the Name of the Lord be blessed in the Future