Roy Calvocoressi, was a dedicated evangelical Anglo Catholic in his 20s
when he was baptised in the Holy Spirit in 1956 as 
he
was leading a men's bible study in his home on Whit Sunday. He remembers
he suddenly felt his chair start to sway and he could hardly focus
on the words in front of him. "It seemed to go on for an awful
long time. I knew it was of God and was somehow generated by the words
I was reading in the bible about the Holy Spirit." Nobody else
present, however, heard or saw anything but he knew that it was a
real visitation of God. He had no experience of the Charismatic Renewal
so it was only later when he met Michael Harper, one of the early
Anglican charismatics, that he learnt what had happened to him and
that he had had the experience known as Baptism in the Spirit.
"I didn't get the gift of tongues," says Roy, "instead
I got a call to get involved with the poor and needy". This
he immediately did while continuing his career as a barrister
at the Inner Temple. Initially he became involved with prison
work and eventually set up the Langley House Trust for the rehabilitation
of homeless offenders. He was also one of the founding trustees
of Traidcraft, which tries to help local producers overseas get
fair prices for their goods.
A piece of scripture meanwhile became increasingly important
to him as he meditated on it over the years. This was 1 Peter
2:24 "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross,
so that free from sin we might live for righteousness. By his
wounds you have become healed." Roy became fascinated by
this idea of how Jesus by absorbing the sin of the world made
transformation and new life possible for humankind and he pondered
how the Church, as the body of Christ today was now being called
to put this into practice by absorbing evil to stop it spreading.
Eventually feeling that his legal career and voluntary work
was not totally satisfying him, he began to sense a new call
from God to direct all his gifts and talents to one thing, and
he pondered what this might be. He took time out and on a visit
to Cyprus he was struck as he read the newspapers how they were
full of news of war, while in the New Testament, almost every
page mentioned peace.
In Greek there are various words for peace, but the peace
that most frequently appears in the New Testament is "Eirene",
which is an inner peace that can be present in the midst of conflict
and is the peace that only God can bring, as opposed to the peace
called Hesuchiah, which means the absence of conflict and physical
tranquillity.
This led Roy to reflect on Ephesians 2:14 "For he is
our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall
of enmity through his flesh". Cyprus at the time was in
the midst of deep political unrest between Turkish and Greek
Cypriots. Roy comments, "I could see that although everyone
was having talks they weren't getting anywhere because everyone
was blaming everyone else and no one was prepared to take the
blame." What was needed he felt were people - Christians
- who were prepared to absorb this hatred and the blame - so
that everyone else could move on.
He had been inspired by two Cypriot trade unionists, one Greek
and one Turkish, to take part in building a freedom road, between
two villages. But when the two men were assassinated when their
car was blown up, a dampner was put on things. Roy decided, however,
he would still take part in the project. He comments, "I
had my first experience of learning to overcome fear." The
secret he says was when he was confronted by "an enemy"
to remember that God not only loved Roy himself but also the
"enemy" and that Roy had to go out in love to the person
he was afraid of. In practice, he said, this meant looking the
person in the eye. "Eye contact is very important,"
he stresses, "as it helps you to overcome your own fear
and helps the other person to relax and trust and know that you
mean them no harm."
Sensing that his own call was in this grass roots style of
peacemaking through personal relationship rather than campaigning
or negociating, and finding no official organisation at the time
that was doing this, Roy decided to set up his own small peace
group. "I wanted something that was clearly Christian, international
and had an emphasis on service at its heart," he says. Thus
CHIPS (Christian International Peace Service) was born.
Roy saw the essential vision of CHIPS to be small acts of
reconciliation and building bridges by mediation rather than
negociation. Thus the first project the fledgling little group
of four CHIPS volunteers decided to do was to simply take care
of the citrus groves that had been abandoned in the Cyprus troubles.
These were to be found all over the island as Greeks feeling
intimidated had moved out of predominantly Turkish areas, and
the Turks had moved out of Greek areas, due to fear of violence.
Roy remembers "We first went to the elders on both sides
of the conflict and asked them if they would like us to take
care of their fields. "You can't do that, they will kill
you," we were told but when we told them we were prepared
to take that chance, they were amazed but naturally agreed."
Thus for three years the CHIPS volunteers simply cared for
these trees, and gradually helped to create a positive atmosphere
in the locality between the different sides, until things were
calm enough for the original owners to return their groves. Their
next project was equally practical - the rebuilding of Kinasi,
an abandoned Turkish village in a Greek area, and persuading
the former inhabitants to return.
Roy remembers, "The families were pretty scared at the
idea but one of our volunteers at the time, Michael Kennedy,
did a brilliant job. He went all round Cyprus tracking them down,
drinking coffee with them, getting to know them. Finally he found
7 families who were prepared to risk coming back." The CHIPS
volunteers did all the initial building of the seven houses.
When this was successfully done, the Turkish authorities then
paid for the refurbishing of 13 more houses and so 20 families
in all eventually returned to their birth place and the ghost
village came back to life.
The plan was to do the same for other abandoned villages,
but the Greek government withdrew the team's visas and they were
forced to leave. Tragically two years later during the Turkish
invasion of the island in 1974 another outbreak of trouble erupted
and the wife of the village shepherd was murdered and the village
was abandoned once more.
Roy has learnt over the years to accept these heart breaking
set-backs, knowing that any victories in peace making can only
be partial in this world. He comments, "It's no good in
this sort of peace-making to be unduly optimistic. The people
in the village, however, told me that they never regretted going
back and that it was the best five years of their lives."
Accepting the pain of this, is all part of the call, he says
and it has not dimmed his sense of mission, which has continued
unabated over the last 30 years, with CHIPS projects in India,
the Philippines, Northern Ireland and in inner city London. The
most recent project is in NE Uganda working with the warring
tribes of the Karamojong and the Iteso. This through a farming
programme, had brought the two sides together, in a low key but
quite remarkable way. Roy comments, "We didn't negotiate
with them or preach to them but simply moved amongst them and
let the Gospel become infectious in deed and word and in the
heart. The natural instincts of mankind are such that we all
know it is not good to hate each other and the quality of our
CHIPS volunteers was such that they were touched by their lives.
Most of the fighting had been about cattle. The Karamajong were
hungry and they had guns so they stole the cattle of the Iteso.
It is not always appropriate to expect people to say words of
repentance as they can feel they are betraying their people and
their past. What's more important is action. And what happened
instead was that the Karamojong lent their ploughing oxen to
the Iteso and the Iteso in return gave them some of the fruit
of their harvest. These actions showed their repentance and forgiveness."
After several years of positive interaction the international
volunteers were able to pull out, leaving the project in the
hands of the local CHIPS volunteers who are made up of people
from both tribes. Last year, however, when everything seemed
to be blooming another tragedy struck, and a sudden outbreak
of violence instigated by maverick government troops, put everyone
on a war footing again. Interestingly, however, within this new
situation, some have taken to heart the CHIPS message of the
importance of in Christ "bearing the enmity" for the
community. Roy tells of one old Iteso woman, who heard hungry
Karamojong warriors in her compound trying to get into her chicken
coup. She was tempted to call the Iteso men folk from the village,
but knew if she did there would be a blood bath, so instead despite
her fear she simply prayed. The men were unable to get into the
coup and getting bored, went off with some mangoes and vegetables
instead and no one was killed.
CHIPS run workshops and weekends round the country when they
share their spirituality, particularly for those who might be
interested in joining a CHIPS team overseas, although their peacemaking
vision is of use for all those working in divided communities.
The next weekend is February 8th-10th in Henley on Thames
- cost £65. The speakers are Sergei Tarassenko (Atomic
Scientist), Michael Kennedy (CHIPS Cyprus Veteran), Roy and Elfrida
Calvocoressi. Further details from Christian International Peace
Service, Bix Bottom Farm, Henley on Thames, Oxon RG9 6BH Tel
01491 413616
