Nagpur, India, 19 October (ENI)--The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has led celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the Church of North India, which was formed by six Protestant denominations, including Anglicans, in 1970. At the end of a three-hour 15 October thanksgiving service at Nagpur in central India, Archbishop Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, lit a candle symbolising the re-dedication of the CNI to its "uniting" mission.

Holding lighted candles in their hands, bishops, clergy and lay people repeated a solemn pledge of rededication in the presence of local and international delegates. The six uniting churches in 1970 represented Anglican, Baptist, Brethren, Congregational, Disciples, Methodist and Presbyterian traditions. As he spoke in a sermon about the search for unity, Williams observed, "As we stop listening to one another, we stop listening to Christ. And whether this happens in the name of nationality or tradition or pride of achievement or purity of teaching, the effect is the same tragedy."

The Anglican leader, on a 9-24 October visit to India, said, "When the Church here in India woke up to the fact that divisions in the Christian community were in the eyes of many a major argument against the credibility of the Christian faith itself, it was the voice of Christ that the Church heard, a voice that for a moment sounded more clearly than the voices of human tradition in this or that denomination." The CNI brought together many of the Protestant missions and churches spread across India except in four southern states that had been united in 1947 as the Church of South India.

The churches of North India and South India belong to the Anglican Communion, as well as other global Christian groupings such as the World Communion of Reformed Churches. The visit by Williams visit comes as a time of tension in the worldwide Anglican Communion after the 2003 consecration by the Episcopal (Anglican) Church in the United States of a homosexual bishop who has a male partner. The Episcopal Church has since consecrated as a bishop an openly lesbian cleric, who has lived with a female partner for 22 years.

Speaking on 14 October at the Nagpur headquarters of the National Council of Churches in India, Williams said the actions of the U.S. church had "caused enormous division and anguish" in the Anglican family. Many Anglican leaders in the global South have strongly condemned the actions of the Episcopal Church. "What I said a few weeks ago was that I have no problem with gay priests or bishops because of their orientation," said Williams, referring to a newspaper interview in Britain. "They should not be hated or despised simply because of sexual orientation. But the problem comes when they decide to act."

Before the 40th anniversary service began, Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, the CNI's moderator, rededicated a unity monument erected to commemorate the union. "While we celebrate our common unity that is expressed in our common worship and in our common mission towards working among the marginalised and dispossessed, we also recognise that being a united and uniting church implies that we continue to name the sin of disunity among us even today," stated CNI general secretary Alwan Masih reading out a unity declaration. [557 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Bangalore, India, 11 October (ENI)--The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has begun a 16-day visit to India by paying tribute to Mother Teresa at her tomb in Kolkata, the north eastern city once known as Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state. "The Archbishop of Canterbury had expressed a desire to visit Mother Teresa's tomb first when the trip was planned," Ashoke Biswas, the Church of North India bishop of Kolkata told ENInews on 11 October.

After praying on 9 October at the tomb of Mother Teresa, Williams visited the room of the Roman Catholic nun who would become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the exhibition on her life at the Mother House of her Missionaries of Charity. Later, the archbishop proceeded to a CNI school where children sang two poems - one by Mother Teresa and the other by Williams - to melodies composed by the school musician.

The following day, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion preached at St Peter's church in Kolkata, visited an AIDS hospice and a nursing college run by the CNI, before a service at St Paul's Cathedral to mark a global day of prayer for the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. In a sermon, Williams urged Christians to see the poverty-reducing goals not just as a concern for those in government, but as aims that should be pursued within their own communities.

"We want, as churches, to be a community where vulnerable people are safe, where education and nurture are guaranteed, where all have access to justice, where the material world is honoured and properly cared for, where healing is available for all," said Williams. The service was followed by a public reception attended by top government officials led by M. K. Narayanan, the West Bengal state governor, and federal railway minister Mamata Banerjee.

On 14 October, the Archbishop of Canterbury is to be hosted at a celebration at Nagpur in central India to mark the 40th anniversary of the CNI as a grouping uniting Anglican, Baptist, Brethren, Congregational, Disciples, Methodist and Presbyterian traditions. At Chennai on 16 October, Williams will visit St Thomas Mount. There Thomas, the apostle of Jesus, is reputed to have embraced martyrdom as one of the first Christians to arrive in India.

In Chennai, the Anglican leader will meet bishops of the Church of South India, a united church inaugurated in 1947. In Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala state, where his wife Jane was born, the archbishop will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the CSI's diocese of central Kerala. Williams' visit will culminate at a meeting with leaders of the Mar Thoma Church, which together with the CNI and CSI constitutes the Communion of Churches in India, and is in full communion with the churches of the 77-million strong Anglican Communion. [479 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]