Friday 13th November saw the beginning of Royal Holloway’s Interfaith Week with an Interfaith breakfast hosted in the chapel. The earlybird students who attended were treated to free food, including adorable little loaves of bread, as well as a chance to mingle with students of all faiths and overall organisers, Chaplaincy and Faith Support.
There are a number of faith societies at Royal Holloway and in the spirit of Interfaith Week they came together for Soc Swap. Each day a different society ran an event for all, designed to show other students something about their faith. It began with Sikh Soc sharing their beliefs on heaven and hell, aided by the organisation ‘Basics of Sikhi’. Monday and Tuesday evening saw open prayer sessions from both the Chaplaincy and Hindu Society. Catholic Society welcomed author Joe Glackin for their murder mystery evening combined with games and a question and answer on their faith. On Thursday evening the CU hosted a Grill a Christian event with three local church workers answering questions from the floor about all kinds of topics from sex to suffering. The final event came from Islamic Society, who opened the Muslim Prayer Room on campus for ‘pray and chat’. The week also saw the return of Jewish Society, who flyered across campus, getting to know those who were interested in Judaism.
The Chaplaincy also ran further events, including a talk on Pilgrimage and the Faith Spaces tour. Running all through the week was the opportunity for people across campus to share what faith is to them. Thanks to a whiteboard and a camera over 40 people took part in the project with the photos available on the Chaplaincy Facebook page.
You can read more about the week from the Chaplaincy blog at https://rhulfaith.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/interfaith-week-2015/
By Beth Carr
