Willkommen

Croquet, Shakespeare, strawberries (oodles of; it’s that time of year), elderflower cordial, lots and lots of food, and worship… could be how some of the visitors from Wolmirstedt summed up their visit to Malvern.

For over 30 years, the Priory has been ‘twinned’ with St Katharina’s, Wolmirstedt, which is a town close to Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Every couple of years or so (unless Covid intervenes) a group from one congregation visits the other, staying in each others homes, getting to know each other, visiting the locality and worshipping together.

So, after close to two years’ meticulous planning, it was wonderful to welcome St Katharina’s pastor and eight of the congregation, to an action-packed five-day visit to Malvern.

Friday night saw a gathering for supper in the Lyttelton Rooms, with translatable games (‘Who am I’, Pictionary) and songs and hymns in German and English over a delicious baked potato buffet meal.

On Saturday night the visitors went separately to ‘supper hosts’ for a meal and entertainment, which, in one case included learning croquet (final result St Katharina’s 1: Malvern Priory 1) and playing the German card game ‘Phase 10’, plus the compulsory strawberries and a first experience of Cornish Clotted Cream.

Parish Communion on Sunday morning was an uplifting confluence of German and English worship, where the epistle and intercessions were read in both languages and Holy Communion was distributed by Pastor Ute and two young people from St Katharina’s. Gifts were exchanged - the freshly-Deaconed Curate was pressed into service to share handmade Priory oak crosses from the old Nave floor, and Roger received a statue of St Katherine for the Priory.

Watch this space for a further report from an uplifting, inspiring visit.