Archbishop Williams Hosts Melanesian Religious Communities at Lambeth

Melanesian religious communities visited Lambeth Palace earlier this week as special guests of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and his wife. Members of the Melanesian Brotherhood, including members of the Sisters of Melanesia, the Society of St. Francis and the Sisters of the Church, dressed in white-robes, filled the congregation for the Eucharist in the Lambeth Palace Chapel on Tuesday.

Since April, the Melanesians have been in England and have shared their ministry of drama, music and dance with the Diocese of Chester and Exeter.

The Melanesian Brotherhood is an order of lay brothers which was founded eighty years ago by Ini Kopuria, a Solomon Islander. Their mission and evangelism is to serve Christians and non-Christians alike of the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji. The Brothers take a five-year vow of poverty, chastity and obedience which can be renewed. The order includes 450 brothers and 270 novices and has recently opened new houses in the Philippines and New Zealand.

The Brothers share the Gospel in a Melanesian way and bring good news to the people of the Pacific islands. They travel between villages, carrying only their Bibles and walking sticks, barefoot and dressed distinctively in black and white. They live their lives by tending fields, casting fishing nets, repairing roofs, visiting the sick, leading bible study and presenting their own dramatised versions of the Gospel stories.

Though the Brotherhood had faced some tragic moments where seven of them were killed by extremist groups in the Solomon Islands in the midst of a peace agreement, their spiritual passion has not died down.

Since April, the Brothers and the other Melanesians have shared their energetic and original Gospel dramas with dozens of churches, schools, community centres and prisons throughout the Dioceses.

On Tuesday, the Brothers performed ‘The Lost Son’, their version of the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible. They re-enacted the parable as the story of a young Melanesian man named Cheeka who is bored by his life at home and persuades his father to give him his share of the family’s wealth so he can set off to find “sophistication” in London.

Cheeka’s adventures in London are exciting, but his lavish lifestyle soon dims down to be too destructive. He ends up feeding a herd of pigs for money and ultimately finds himself joining the pigs in their meals. The story leads to the Prodigal Son returning to his father’s welcoming embrace and his brother’s fury. In the casting, the Melanesians added a moving scene of the two brothers’ reconciliation, and ended with a celebration with jubilant dancing and panpipe playing.

As the performance came to an end, the Brothers and Archbishop Williams exchanged thanks. Dr Williams is an Associate of the Brotherhood and had spent ten days in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu last year. “This place we never could have dreamed of coming to in our lives,” expressed one of the Brothers. “We are one with you in this big family, God’s family,” he declared.
The Archbishop embraced the brother and pointed out that the Palace’s Garden Room had never seen anything quite like the show which they had just performed. He referred to the portraits of the archbishops hanging on the walls and said, those “who were at the beginning of the life of the Anglican Communion, never in their wildest dreams imagined that what they had begun would come back to speak to us as you have, today.”

The Archbishop conveyed his love for the Brotherhood and for the Church of Melanesia. “We think of you often,” he said. “Think of us sometimes as we work together for God's kingdom as best we can.”

The Melanesian Brotherhood will lead the liturgy for the Sunday morning Eucharist on Sunday, July 31 at St Martin in the Fields Church in London. In the evening, they will perform their drama entitled The Passion of the Lord.