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Ecumenism
Life in the British Isles can encourage an insular mentality: baptism, on the other hand, immediately demands a widening of our outlook. The Church, the Body of Christ, embraces all nations, peoples and languages. While the majority of students will always be candidates for ordination in the Church of England, the College rejoices in a diversity of traditions, nationalities and confessions.
From the Community's long relationship with Southern Africa has come a scholarship for young Anglican priests from the Province of Southern Africa to study for a further year; a link with the Romanian Orthodox Church reaching back to the 1930's has borne fruit in an annual scholarship for a graduate student to spend a year at Mirfield, as well as regular exchanges of both students and staff with Orthodox and Lutheran Theological Institutes in Sibiu. Ties were further strengthened when in 2004 the Romanian Orthodox Parish of Saint Macarios the Great was founded in Mirfield, meeting in the College chapel. Friendships with the Lutheran Church of Sweden have led to ordination candidates from Sweden spending a year of their training at the College; we have had exchanges with Roman Catholic seminaries and with Methodist colleges. From time to time, a student or priest from one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches has studied at the College, and we have particular and long-standing links with the Apostolic Church of Armenia.