On Saturday 20 November at a ceremony held at Ayia Kyriaki (by St Paul’s Pillar), Kato Paphos, Archbishop Michael Lewis installed the Reverend Ken Waters as the new Parish Priest of the Anglican Church in Paphos. Reverend Ken brings many life experiences to the role, having served for over 20 years in the British army, then entering the commercial world of industry before joining the priesthood where he went on to manage a Benefice of eight churches and staff.
He joined us at one of the busiest times in the Church calendar and led many well-attended services from Advent through the Christmas period at the three churches in the Parish – Ayia Kyriaki (by St Paul’s Pillar), Kato Paphos, St Luke’s, Prodromi and St Stephen’s, Tala.
A notable return to this years’ list of services was the reintroduction of a ‘Christingle’ held at St Stephen’s. This proved to be a fun-filled, joyous event attended by a number of local children accompanied by their parents. The Brownies, Guides and Rangers kindly volunteered to make our Christingles and did a superb job. We hope to build on our Christingle service as it really is an enjoyable Christmas service with lots of sweets and fun.
During this festive season members of the Anglican Church of Paphos have also brought Christmas cheer to many individuals. From clothes-filled shoe boxes for seamen to presents for children of needy local families and of refugees.
For Seafarers who were far from home this Christmas, members of St Luke’s Church, donated the contents for 25 gift-wrapped Christmas boxes for The Mission To Seafarers Centre in Limassol, to join those from other Parishes on the island. The Mission’s Chaplain and volunteers visited ships in Port this Christmas distributing the gifts to Seafarers who each received a box containing a wool hats, gloves or socks and a selection of toiletries and sweets.
The congregation of Ayia Kyriaki, Kato Paphos responded promptly and very generously for the seventh year when asked to join with other churches in the Island to give 100+ children in the refugee camp at Kofinou a beautiful Christmas experience. Over 90 individual gifts were distributed among children ranging in age from up to one year old and from 8 – 11 years of age.
80 Christmas gifts were provided by members of the St Stephen’s congregation Tala through their “Giving (Christmas) Tree” project. The gifts were presented to the Department of Social Services in Paphos and distributed by its staff to the children of needy families in Paphos. The Department had previously provided a list of the ages and genders (but not names) of the recipient children to enable the presents to be matched accordingly.
Looking ahead, this month, January, sees the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity with church celebrations being held throughout the World. In the Paphos region we will be marking the occasion on Monday 24th January with a joint service with the Latin Catholic Church entitled “The Journey of Faith in Unity” at Ayia Kyriaki (by St Paul’s Pillar) in Kato Paphos starting at 4.00pm and everyone is welcome. More information on the WPCU can be found at the website:
www.ctbi.org.uk/weekofprayer
The Anglican Church of Paphos not only conducts regular church-based activities but provides a range of services and outreach activities within the community. Full details of these can be found on our website: www.paphosanglicanchurch.org and on our Facebook page
Finally, may we take the opportunity of wishing everyone a Happy and Joyous New Year in the hope that we may soon be free of Covid and in getting our lives back on track.
