Perth’s Richard Charlwood was ordained to the minor orders of Lector and Subdeacon for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on June 23 at St John the Baptist Church in Maylands.
Bishop Peter Stasiuk CSsR presided over the ceremony with the help of Fr Wolodymr Kalinecki, Fr Brian Kelty, Fr Chris Ross OSM, Fr Steve Truscott SM and Fr Kevin Cummins.
It was the first time the ceremony had been performed at the Maylands church, and a significant day for Mr Charlwood.
Having already spent 16 years in a religious order before taking on various teaching roles, Mr Charlwood said it had been a long journey.
“It’s 20 years since I left religious life, but the call never left, so I’m responding to a call that goes back a long way,” he said.
“It’s been an amazing journey.”
Mr Charlwood received tonsure in the form of a cross, and was vested with a small phelonion, only worn on the day.
After reading from the Epistle Book, Mr Charlwood was vested in the sticharion for his ordination as a subdeacon.
Prior to his ordination, Mr Charlwood told The Record how his entry into the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 2008 came about.
“The first Ukrainian Greek Catholic church I went into was in Sydney and I would have been 12 or 13,” he recalled.
“We had a very good RE teacher at one of the schools I was at, and he told us about the Churches of the East. My interest was sparked then.”
Mr Charlwood, who has been teaching Indonesian since 2007, said he would need to add another language to his repertoire.
“As I proceed toward diaconate, I’ll need to learn the parts of the liturgy in Ukrainian,” he said.
“I’ve started that process. I can read Greek, so some of the characters are familiar, but some of them are just totally new, so I’m still getting my head around them.”
Already filling the role of cantor, Mr Charlwood will have additional roles to perform during the Divine Liturgy as a subdeacon.
“Basically, the subdeacon serves at the liturgy, that’s his basic function,” he said.
“He also can serve some of the minor orders that come before that, so he can still be a cantor, a reader and a candle bearer. He really comes into his own during an hierarchical liturgy [when] the bishop is present.”
Mr Charlwood said he hoped he would be ordained to the order of deacon in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Australia was recently proclaimed as a recognised religious denomination in its own right. Australia’s Governor-General Quentin Bryce made the announcement on June 13.
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