Last month both of our volunteer interns spent time away from Coventry, visiting various CCN partners for a couple of weeks. Today, we hear from Lara, about her time as guest of the Studienzentrum für Jugendarbeit in Josefstal, Germany:
In early May I travelled to Bavaria to attend this year’s European Ecumenical Study Course in the Study Centre in Josefstal. The course offers Christians from Northern, Southern, Eastern and Central Europe as well as Great Britain the opportunity to come together for an intensive ten-day meeting, get into conversation and learn from one another. Only interrupted by the two Covid-19 years, the study course took place for the 53rd time in 2022. This year’s topic was “Christian Identity in a Changing Europe” with the theme “Not a Spirit of Fear, but of Power and Love and Sound Mind”.
On my train ride from Munich to Josefstal I’ve already had some time to admire the beautiful, very idyllic landscape in the very South of Bavaria, where the Study Centre is located. The first days were very much about getting to know the other roughly 30 participants and getting introduced to this year’s topic.
After breakfast we started every day with morning prayer in the small chapel. The Study Centre became a CCN partner in 1967 and the chapel is the place where they display their Cross of Nails. The different services we had throughout the 10 days were always led by other people so that there was an interesting variety to it. As this study course was both Ecumenical and European people of different denominations with different cultural backgrounds and worship traditions and who were speaking different languages came and worked together. Getting together with so many different people you wouldn't usually meet in everyday life - and definitely not all at once - created a very interesting dynamic. At a first glance, the most striking thing was probably how different all of us were, born into different generations in different countries and believing in different things. But still we slowly but steadily grew together as a group and in the end, I think everybody realized that our similarities were actually much stronger and much more important than everything that might have divided us. And one of the things I liked most about it was that everybody seemed to be genuinely interested and really wanted to get to know other peoples’ views and opinions on different issues even though they might not always agree.
But of course, the core of a study course is still the studying and we also did plenty of that. We’ve had lectures, excursions, workshops as well as discussions in both big and small groups. Talking about Christian identity in a changing Europe the biblical character of Peter took central stage in our discussions and we specifically looked at and talked about his changing identity as a follower of Jesus.
One of the most interesting days for me was definitely the Thursday we all went to Munich. There we first visited and got a tour around the Rumanian-Orthodox Centre in Munich. After that we went to the Evangelical Migration Centre Munich in the so-called Greek House, where we learned about their work with migrants in Munich. Overall, we got some very interesting insights on that day and then all went for a traditional Bavarian lunch in a restaurant.
The parts around the studying itself were actually what made the study course most special in my opinion. Especially after the Covid-19 years it was just really nice to be around lots of people again, eat together, pray together, laugh together, talk about important as well as rather mundane things. To go on hikes, sit together in the evenings and drink the one or other bottle of bear or glass of wine. To play table tennis and table soccer together and to grow together throughout these ten days.
Lara Toczelowski, Coventry Cathedral volunteer intern
