Christian support for mariners at a time of international conflict is the focus of this year’s Sea Sunday on July 10.
It comes as seafarers face a second acute crisis, supplementing the intense difficulties they have faced during the pandemic, writes Revd Canon Andrew Wright, Secretary General of the Church of England’s Mission to Seafarers.
“With 65,000 Ukrainian and 200,000 Russian crew globally, our teams around the world are dealing with very significant additional levels of stress, on top of all that has been faced since 2020.
“The stories are often unthinkably horrific and underline the immense human cost of the current conflict, on crew and their families amongst many others.
“Many crews have been trapped in Ukrainian ports and some actually faced attack. Indeed, one of our Chaplains was able to visit and support a traumatised crew on such a vessel.
“His ministry was so much valued that they asked him to stay on board for 24 hours – which he did.
Revd Andrew invited all our parishes to join in Sea Sunday: “As one of the Church of England’s ten formal Partners in World Mission, and with integral relationships with the Anglican Communion all over the world, our ministry is that of your congregations. It is a ministry of which we believe you can be proud.”
Sea Sunday packs can be requested from: seasunday@missiontoseafarers.org