Mission - Our International Links

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Our International Links

Introduction
The Diocese of Gloucester has five diocesan links from around the world:

The Diocese of Karnataka Central
The Diocese of Dornakal
The Diocese of Västerås
The Diocese of Western Tanganyika
The Diocese of of El Camino Real

"Overseas partnerships are enriching in all sorts of ways. They reveal to us the wonderful diversity of the Church and they enable us to learn from churches that have much to teach us. They teach us how to make the Church grow, rather than decline, they draw faith out of us as we find ourselves deeply humbled by Christians in other parts of the world who are poor in the world's goods, but rich in faith. We are enabled to support Christians witnessing as small minorities in Muslim or Hindu contexts and to strengthen their resolve in the face of real persecution. We find ourselves caught up in a wonderful fellowship of prayer and sometimes we can offer practical help; always we can be encouragers."
Bishop Michael

The Diocese of Karnataka Central
The Karnataka Central Diocese surrounds the area of Bangalore in the State of Karnataka. Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India, and is one of the fastest growing cities of Asia.

The Mission Statement of the Diocese is: In keeping with its commitment to promote the establishment of an egalitarian society based on Christian values.

The Diocese of Dornakal
The Diocese of Dornakal was established in 1913 by the then Bishop Rt Reverend V S Azariah who was the first Anglican Indian Bishop. He served the church in various prestigious responsibilities from his young student career since 1912 till his death as Bishop of Dornakal in 1945. There was great evangelical moment during his tenure. At the end of his life the Diocese grew to 240,000 Christians.

Over the past 85 years the Diocese has been involved in many activities like evangelism, establishing educational institutions, hospitals, homes for orphans and people with disabilities. The Diocese is very active in spreading the gospel and evangelism among non-Christians.

The Diocese of Västerås
The link between the dioceses originated from a twinning agreement that Gloucestershire County Council had with the country of Västmänlands, at the centre of which is the town Västerås. Arising out of these civic links came a request from the Swedish church for closer links between the two dioceses. Discussions and visits took place, which led to the formation of the Partnership in 2006.

England and Sweden, and the English and Swedish churches in particular, have so many common issues and challenges. Through sharing experiences by visits, exchanges, mutual training and reflection on our different perspectives and insights in relation to ministry, worship and community we hope to learn much from each other.
www.svenskakyrkan.se/vasterasstift/

The Dioceses of El Camino Real and Western Tanganyika
The Bishop's Council, backed by the Diocesan Synod, agreed in early 2008 to a new (and this time) Anglican link, a triangular partnership between England, Africa and America. The Diocese of Gloucester from Advent Sunday 2008 has been in partnership with the Diocese of Western Tanganyika in Tanzania and the Diocese of El Camino Real in California. This new link arised from the Lambeth Conference, where it became very clear that the Anglican Communion, which is a gift to the world that we need to value, needs links across the cultures that will allow friendships to develop where people can begin to understand one another better and to find the safe space to explore differences about theology, scripture, ethics and Church order that threaten our unity.

The Diocese of El Camino Real stretches from just south of San Francisco to just north of Santa Barbara. Until 1980 a part of the Diocese of California, the congregations of El Camino Real are found in the five counties of San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey. Although the youngest diocese in California, ECR's Trinity Cathedral, in San Jose, is the oldest cathedral structure in the State of California.

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves was elected as the third bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real in June 2007. She was ordained as bishop on November 10, 2007 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Saratoga, California. You can visit their website on: www.edecr.org/
and the partnership page on: www.edecr.org/companion/

The Diocese of Western Tanganyika
The Diocese of Western Tanganyika was established in 1966. It is geographically the largest Diocese within the Anglican Church of Tanzania. At present the Diocese has 150 parishes in its 32 Deaneries. The link between our dioceses was begun by the Rt Revd Gerard Mpango who was bishop for over 25 years. The current Bishop of Western Tanganyika, the Rt Revd Sadock Makaya became Bishop on 10 October 2010.

Click on the link below to see a Video of Partnership Agreement signing. (This takes you to an external page)
www.triptych-design.co.uk/glovidb/