Norwegian Anglicans mourn for those lost in massacres
Episcopal News Service. July 25, 2011 [072511-05]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Anglicans in Norway are responding with prayer and support to their neighbors in the wake of a bombing in downtown Oslo and a related summer camp shooting rampage on the nearby island of Utoya on July 22.
"Norway is known throughout the world as a peace-loving country, which takes leadership among the nations to protect the weak and uphold the dignity of all," Church of England Suffragan Bishop in Europe David Hamid wrote July 23 to (Lutheran) Church of Norway Presiding Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien and Oslo Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme. "At this time of national sorrow, your Anglican brothers and sisters, in Norway and across our diocese, stand with you and assure you of our prayers, for the nation, for all who have died, and for the many families and friends who are affected. We pray for God to strengthen the faith of your people at this time, and to bring comfort to a country in shock, and console all who have lost loved ones."
Hamid attended the Norwegian Church in London on July 25 to offer his sympathy and solidarity, the diocese said.
Anglicans in Norway are part of the Church of England's Diocese of Europe and there are congregations in Bergen, Oslo, Stavanger and Trondheim.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams sent a message to the Church of Norway expressing his "deepest sympathy with the people of Norway in the wake of the appalling events of recent days."
"Norway has played so great a part over many years in international reconciliation as well as developing its own distinctive national ethos of openness and fairness, and it is a special tragedy that it should suffer this outbreak of senseless carnage," he said. "Our prayers are with all those who died and all those who mourn them; and we are grateful for the many signs of strength and spiritual maturity that the Norwegian people have shown in their response to evil and destructiveness."
The Church of England and the Church of Norway are in full communion, as a result of the Porvoo Agreement.
The 11:00 a.m. service July 24 at St. Edmund's Anglican Church in Oslo focused on the massacres, according to a diocesan press release. Flowers and candles have been left on the steps of the church which is on the outer edge of the police cordon around the city center, the release said. The church, just 500 yards from where the bomb exploded, was not damaged in the attack.
The congregation's treasurer and administrative leader is a forensic odontologist who is involved in the identification of bodies of the young people at the summer camp who were shot as they tried to run away from the gunman, who was dressed as a policeman.
At least 76 people were killed in the two attacks. The causality figure was revised downward from ones in the 90s on July 25. Anders Behring Breivik, a man described as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian, was seized by the police at the island and charged with both incidents. The New York Times reported July 25 that Breivik claims two extremist cells helped him carry out the attacks.
Authorities said he was religious, gun-loving and obsessed with what he saw as the threat of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration to the cultural and patriotic values of Norway, the Times reported.
At St. Edmund's the Rev. Canon Janet Heil said that leading the prayers for relatives and friends of the many people affected was a very emotional time.
Heil, like many living in Norway, had been out of the city on vacation at the time of the attack. She cut short her holiday to return to the congregation, the diocesan release said.
Heil plans to offer the use of St. Edmund's to the Swedish church in Oslo as their building has been damaged by the bomb.
Meanwhile, the World Council of Churches released a litany for the Norwegian killings. It is available here.