In yesterday’s announcements in chapel, Canon Alfred, in noting my assistance with the logistics with the Practical Studies department (making the chapel rota for the semester (several times – and I thought it would be easy!), essentially being the tutor for this week’s team, making booklets so we could test the new liturgies, and probably some things I’m forgetting), he called me the Archdeacon.
Archdeacons are just below bishops in the hierarchy, and are in charge of archdeaconry, as you can well imagine. As near as I can tell, they administratively run the archdeaconry, and report on its health and welfare to the bishop. So, they’re rather well-regarded, as all the priests in the archdeaconry report to them.
So, when Canon Alfred called me the Archdeacon, we all had a good laugh, most especially me. I was made a priest two months ago, and now I’m an archdeacon?
Then today, in the Dean’s Hour, the dean was noting that we need to have a way to track chapel attendance, and that the Archdeacon would be handling that.
This worries me for two reasons: 1. this archdeacon label, while funny, could be interpreted seriously by someone at some point, and 2. I need to come up with a way to quickly account for approximately 125-150 people, five times a week? Egads.
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