This is not a joke!
London, Aug 5--(UPI) The newly designated archbishop of Canterbury
donned a white cloak, stepped into a stone circle and became a druid at
sunrise Monday--and immediately drew accusations of paganism from within
the Church of England.
The ceremony in the Welsh cathedral city of St. David's made Rowan
Williams, currently archbishop of Wales, an honorary white druid in the
highest of the three orders of the Gorsedd of Bards, a 1,300-strong
society of Welsh-speaking poets, writers and musicians.
Sniping from within the Anglican Church, of which Williams has been
chosen the 104th archbishop of Canterbury, was quick in coming. "This
ceremony certainly looks pagan," the Rev. Angus Macleay, a leading member of the church's evangelical wing, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Williams swiftly struck back, insisting it was "deeply offensive" to label either himself or the Celtic Gorsedd of Bards as pagan. "Some people have reached the wrong conclusion about the ceremony," he said.
He described the druidic award as "one of the greatest honors which
Wales can bestow upon her citizens." Supporters pointed out that the
Welsh cleric was in good company, since the late actor Richard Burton
and Queen Elizabeth II's late mother also were white druids. The
Gorsedd actually started in London in 1792 as a society dedicated to
promoting Welsh descendants who have made a distinguished contribution
to Wales.
It was the nature of the hour-long ceremony itself, at the National
Eisteddfod celebration of Welsh culture, that appeared to rile some of
the Anglican Church's conservative evangelicals. As the sun dawned over
St. David's, Rowan Williams--clad in a long, white cloak with no
headdress--arrived at the circle of stones to a fanfare of trumpets and
the sheathing and unsheathing of a 6-foot 6-inch sword.
As hymns were sung and poetry recited in Welsh, Williams took the Bardic
name of ap Aneuri, after a 6th century Welsh poet and a modern
politician, Aneurin Bevin, the architect of Britain's National Health Service more than a half-century ago.
Angus Macleay, a member of the Anglican Church's Evangelical Reform
Group, said Williams, who will succeed to the archbishopric when George
Carey steps down in October, "needs to consider what will other people,
non-Welsh members of the Anglican communion, think he is doing."
"How will it help African bishops and pastors seeking to draw people
away from paganism to follow Christ, when they see him involved in this
sort of activity?" Macleay asked.
Williams insisted the ceremony had no links with the "pot-smoking
layabout" pagans and druids who meet regularly at Stonehenge, the
prehistoric monument of monoliths on England's Salisbury Plain. He said
the suggestion "that the Gorsedd is even remotely associated with
paganism is deeply offensive--not just in the suggestion that I would
wish to associate myself in any way with paganism, but also to those
people of goodwill in Wales who appreciate the Gorsedd and Eisteddford
for the color and culture which they bring to Wales's national life."
"The word 'druid'," Williams explained, "is used because when the
Gorsedd was founded ... (founder) Iolo Morganwg had a fantasy that
ancient Britain, prior to the Romans, Saxons and the English, was a
country where druids had supremacy."
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