Our Trust,
If anyone was asked to identify their origins, a specific place from where they derive, we would all answer without doubt or hesitation. Our birth place would always remain special in our hearts.
In the Kingdom of Heaven, our celestial villages or towns will be filled with unimaginable beauty.
Here on earth, the tide of life, has weaved its unexpected web, and we have arrived here, to foreign lands.
We stopped on these shores, all with a different purpose or calling, some of us have been here for a long time, some just arriving. However, we all carry in our hearts and souls the memory of that village from where we stem. Nothing can replace the feeling we have experienced when we walked down the cobbled streets of our village to go to Church, to kneel and pray in front of the altar in which we were baptized, the icons smiling encouraging on us, the hymns filling the air, and the whole community saying the Nicene Creed in one breath.
We all need to re-build and recreate that Church, to take our place in a new community, to leave our mark in this welcoming country of United Kingdom. The Church is where we all meet, it belongs to us all. We bring the prayers known by heart at home, even from childhood. There is no other place which offers what the Church does, a spiritual home.
With this in mind, from the inception of the Church, together with the first parishioners, we have evaluated our future objectives and took into consideration the best option in registering the Church with the UK authorities. It has become apparent that our Parish needs to purchase the place we currently reside, Saint Oswald Church. In order to facilitate this, it has been decided to set up a charity with clearly defined aims and objectives, recognised by the UK authorities.
As part of the charity status registration with Charity Commission, a bank account has been opened with Barclays Bank Plc on 28th November 2013.
On 12th of June 2014, the Parishes’ Charity Trust called ‘The Orthodox Church of Saint Silouan’ has been registered with the Register of Charities, carrying the number 1157458, and having three founding members: Fr. Ciprian Badin, Dr Nicolae Murse and Mr Ciprian Habel.
On 19th March 2015, we have finally received the confirmation from HM Revenue & Customs that our Charity has been registered for tax purposes, with a reference number of EW25808. This has been a long and difficult process, but we are really pleased that the journey we started in the summer of 2013 has been successfully completed.
In order to purchase the Church building, alongside prayers, we require a lot of patience and knowledge of how best to account for the financial incentives available in the UK to all charities, namely the Gift Aid process.
To this end, anyone interested in supporting the Church and therefore becoming its Founder, should consider filling in the Gift-Aid-Declaration.