Ecumenical friends from near and far turned out in force for the Licensing on 17 September of Revd Canon Dr Leslie Nathaniel as new Chaplain of the Anglican Church of St Thomas Becket. Also there to welcome him was the British Honorary Consul, Nicholas Teller.
Father Leslie, until recently the Archbishop of Canterbury’s International Ecumenical Secretary and European Secretary of the Council for Christian Unity, has been eagerly awaited in Hamburg, not just by the Hamburg congregation but also by the wider Christian family in the north German city where there is a thriving ecumenical partnership between the churches.
Leslie, who was born and brought up in South India and has worked in both London and Germany, was supported in Hamburg by his wife Revd Julie Lipp-Nathaniel, a non-stipendiary assistant in the Stuttgart chaplaincy. This Indo-Swabian partnership, said Leslie, still has a lot to learn about the north German way of life. After the Licensing, they now have plenty of new ecumenical friends eager to show them the ropes.
Photo: Roland Magunia