Awareness Sunday is an annual Christian event in the UK. It takes place each year on a Sunday in September and is giving people an opportunity to dedicate themselves to "healing and reconciliation in our communities"; it is an initiative of the Awareness Foundation, [1]
The Awareness Foundation have stated, "Awareness Sunday is an annual opportunity to reflect on the value of loving our neighbour as ourself, even if our neighbour is of a different religious faith or worldview." [2] According to the Awareness Sunday website, [2] "This is an invitation to everyone, whatever their faith or world view, to join us at this time and make a commitment to change attitudes and build relationships in your own community, based on respect and understanding."
Awareness Sunday has been supported by clergy including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as well as other clergy in the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church. In addition, Awareness Sunday is supported by Lord Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, and Sunni and Shia scholars. [3]
A special public service of remembrance and reconciliation for Awareness Sunday took place at Westminster Abbey in London at 6:30 pm on Sunday 11 September 2011. [4] The Abbey was packed with people from around the world including Londoners, tourists, priests, imams and rabbis. A large number of those attending were American. Other events took place across the UK, and internationally. Nadim Nassar, Director of the Awareness Foundation, preached, and Courtney Cowart, a survivor of 9/11, spoke about her experiences. Cowart laid a wreath at the Memorial to Innocent Victims during the service.
In addition, the Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4 at 8:10 am on the morning of 11 September featured a live broadcast of a special Awareness Sunday service at Grosvenor Chapel in London. Nassar preached and Cowart spoke. In addition, a memorial candle was lit by Barbara J. Stephenson, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in London.
Awareness Sunday was held in 2020, with the theme A Sign of Hope. [5] [6] The event has not been held in 2021, 2022 or 2023. [7]
The Church of England is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the origin of the Anglican tradition, which combines features of both Reformed and Catholic Christian practices. Its adherents are called Anglicans.
Thomas Secker was an Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England.
Richard Chenevix Trench was an Anglican archbishop and poet.
Richard John Carew Chartres, Baron Chartres,, FBS is a retired senior bishop of the Church of England.
William Temple was an English Anglican priest, who served as Bishop of Manchester (1921–1929), Archbishop of York (1929–1942) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1942–1944).
The coronation of the monarch of the United Kingdom is an initiation ceremony in which they are formally invested with regalia and crowned at Westminster Abbey. It corresponds to the coronations that formerly took place in other European monarchies, which have all abandoned coronations in favour of inauguration or enthronement ceremonies. A coronation is a symbolic formality and does not signify the official beginning of the monarch's reign; de jure and de facto his or her reign commences from the moment of the preceding monarch's death or abdication, maintaining legal continuity of the monarchy.
The Lords Spiritual are the bishops of the Church of England who sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. Up to 26 of the 42 diocesan bishops and archbishops of the Church of England serve as Lords Spiritual. The Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, and the Anglican churches in Wales and in Northern Ireland, which are no longer established churches, are not represented. The Lords Spiritual are distinct from the Lords Temporal, their secular counterparts who also sit in the House of Lords.
The Anglican Church of Korea is the province of the Anglican Communion in North and South Korea. Founded in 1889, it has over 120 parish and mission churches with a total membership of roughly 65,000 people.
The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England following the Restoration of Charles II. It was a consequence of the Savoy Conference of 1661.
Mark David Oakley is a British Church of England priest. He is Dean of Southwark and formerly Dean of St John's College, Cambridge.
The Church Times is an independent Anglican weekly newspaper based in London and published in the United Kingdom on Fridays.
Michael Eric Marshall is a British Anglican bishop who served as the eighth Bishop of Woolwich in the Church of England from 1975 to 1984.
Robert William Haines Moline was an Anglican bishop.
The Awareness Foundation, formerly the Trinity Foundation for Christianity and Culture, is a Christian charity that was established in England in 2003 for the purpose of peace-building between the Middle East and West.
Christopher Mark "Chris" Chivers is an Anglican priest, composer, and author. From 2015 until 2019, he was the Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, an Anglican theological college in the Liberal Catholic tradition.
The Revd Nadim Nassar is a Syrian-British Anglican priest, who is the Executive Director and Founder of the Awareness Foundation. He established the Awareness Foundation in 2003 with Bishop Michael Marshall in response to the growing need to study the Christian faith in the context of the 21st century.
Albert Basil Orme Wilberforce was an Anglican priest and author in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th. He was the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons and Archdeacon of Westminster.
George William Wright was an Anglican Bishop in Africa in the mid-20th century. He was born on 17 December 1873, educated at Barnsley Grammar School and ordained in 1906 following a 15-year career as a civil servant. After a curacy at Christ Church, Derby he went as a CMS missionary to Mombasa where he remained in various capacities until 1921 when he returned to England as Vicar of Boulton. In 1923 he was consecrated Bishop of Sierra Leone and in 1936 of North Africa. He was Vicar of Templecombe from 1942 to 1951 and an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Bath and Wells. He died on 11 August 1956
Sviatoslav Shevchuk is a Ukrainian Catholic prelate who has served as the Major Archbishop of Kyiv–Galicia and Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) since 25 March 2011.
The Lambeth Awards are awarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In addition to the Lambeth degrees, there are a number of non-academic awards. Before 2016, these awards consisted of the Lambeth Cross, the Canterbury Cross, and the Cross of St Augustine. In 2016, these awards were expanded with six new awards named after previous Archbishops of Canterbury.
