Welcome to the Garden Congregation KZfaq Channel!
Thank you for joining us!
This Easter Thursday join Dean Robert ("The Green Dean") and partner Fletcher (in Upstate New York) as they take a couple of days off from public engagements to catch up with old friends and with correspondence.
(Please forgive one or two sound issues in the broadcast - when we left Canterbury we asked Chapter if we might purchase the camcorder we used for the 26months of broadcasting each day but sadly this was refused; hearing of this and being very upset by it, one of our lovely members of staff bought a beautiful replacement one which we treasure more than we can say because of the kindness and thought behind it but which sadly has one or two issues which we hope to iron out!)
The Garden Congregation:
When the Archbishop decided to close all churches to their clergy because of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, in addition and separately to the closure of churches to their congregations - which did make sense to stop the spread of the virus - the then Dean, Robert Willis, although not governed by the Archbishop (Deans of medieval cathedrals are crown appointments and sit outside of the church and are effectively on the same level as their bishop to serve as a check and balance to them), decided that out of loyalty to his fellow clergy he would also stop broadcasting from inside the cathedral. Instead he and his partner Fletcher held a daily communion inside the cathedral each day in a rotation of different chapels to ensure the tradition of a daily service which dates back to the time of Augustine was upheld and unbroken and also took to filming daily services in their garden through to May 2022. Usually joined each day by at least one of their cats (Monkey, Lilly, Tiger or Leo) and a whole host of their own menagerie from pigs and chickens to hedgehogs and newts and whilst sitting in the gardens through all seasons, this is a wonderful way to switch off and meditate whilst listening to a mix of poetry, recitals, current affairs, music - and of course the daily psalms and readings from the bible which are then explored and unpicked by Dean Robert. The original intention by Fletcher was to connect with "one or two members of our community who might be feeling lonely" and they could not have known that they would in fact connect with hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths and none from every part of the world who named themselves the Garden Congregation. Although initially the broadcasts were all on the cathedral website and other platforms, when they were unexpectedly caused to leave Canterbury Fletcher transferred their films to this new site so that they might still be enjoyed by anyone in the future.
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Thank you again for visiting this Channel and we hope that you will enjoy the films if this is your first time here - and if so then welcome to the Garden Congregation!
For Morning Prayer Dean Robert uses the Church of England book, “Common Worship Daily Prayer 2005” (Church House publishing). The bible is the English Standard Version (Collins), and occasionally - though always stated - Dean Robert uses the New Revised Standard Version or the King James.