The Rev Ferdinand von Prondzynski is Assistant Curate at St Andrew’s Church, Episcopal Church, Alford, in the Diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney, who reflects on being a new priest:–
As I write this, it is exactly 40 years ago that I had my first conversation with an Anglican priest about my vocation. When I add that it is 13 days since I was ordained to the priesthood it will be obvious that my journey was not conducted at speed. After that first conversation, years passed during which I pursued a secular career, while also involving myself constantly with the Church. During those years I was an altar server, a member of various vestries (and for a while, in England, of a Parochial Church Council), a delegate to several diocesan synods – and finally, an ordinand.
Since September 2023 I have been a deacon, and a curate in a small village church. As I grew up in a Church of Ireland (Anglican) rural parish before I lived and worked in cities, arriving in Alford (Aberdeenshire) was like coming home. The rather wonderful people I serve remind me very much of those I looked up to as a child. But they also remind me that my ministry did not begin a year ago, it was there in some ways in my youth, because we are all in our own ways ministers of the Gospel. And much of our ministry is formed in listening, whether to God or to those around us. I have done a lot of listening over the past year.
Being a Christian is being part of a community – the community who worship with us, but also the community outside our doors who need our prayers and who, thanks be to God, also occasionally come to ask for our prayers or seek our help. Two of the most important experiences I have enjoyed over the past year have involved meeting the town community. One has been our “Fellowship Café”, at which we invite people to come into our church, enjoy refreshments or light food, and share their thoughts and concerns. This has been enormously successful, to the point where we have on occasion been worried that we could not accommodate all who come. The café has been organised and run by an exceptional group of volunteers from our congregation, and their ministry has been astonishing.
My other important experience has been in walking around two new housing estates, knocking on doors and introducing myself. There has not been even one case of hostility – though probably some instances of lack of interest; but several deep conversations about faith and spirituality. Even in our secular age, faith has not been completely eroded.
So I thank God for this long vocational journey, and for this experience of a new ministry that yet links to what went before; and, God willing, to what is yet to come.
Photo courtesy of Ferdinand von Prondzynski
