Walk of Peace and Friendship 2017

filed in Event on 13 Jun 2017

Our annual Walk of Peace and Friendship took place this year on 1st July in Brentford and Chiswick. This enjoyable event was our regular opportunity to visit different places of worship, hear informal talks about faith and share with people from different communities in our richly diverse borough.

We met at 11am at the Hanuman Hindu Temple in Beech Avenue in Brentford.  This centre opened officially this year after extensive building and renovation work. Their particular interest is Hindu spirituality through yoga and music. We heard about the meaning of the beautiful carvings on the main doors and the shrines where the priest gave aarti, a Hindu prayer.

A short bus journey took us to Gunnersbury to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Harvard Road in Chiswick where we had a most delicious lunch. The church is the cathedral for the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), with communities on the territories of the UK and Ireland.  We learnt about the very beautiful icons in the upper and lower parts of the church building and the priest gave a blessing.

From there the Walk continued to Christ Church, Turnham Green in Town Hall Avenue,  a lively Anglican parish church.  We heard about the range of their activities using their building in the heart of community and the value they find in prayer.

The final venue was the London Buddhist Vihara in The Avenue. The Vihara has a resident community of monks from Sri Lanka and is a leading centre for Theravada Buddhism. Founded in 1926 by Anagarika Dharmapala, the Vihara was the first Buddhist monastery to be established outside the continent of Asia. It moved to Chiswick in 1964 and has been in its present building since 1994.  We heard about the value of the Buddhist way and heard uplifting Buddhist chanting.

Thank you to all the places of worship who took time to open their doors to us and to the enthusiastic walkers who took part on the day.