Community of the Cross of Nails

Growing together in hope

We are a worldwide network of some 250 churches, charities, chaplaincies, peace-building and retreat centres, schools and other educational and training organisations, all inspired by the Coventry story of destruction, rebuilding and renewal, and active in reconciliation in our own ways.

Our partners

Our three guiding principles are Healing the wounds of history, Learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and Building a culture of justice and peace. We are guided by the words ‘Father Forgive’, and we pray the Litany of Reconciliation on a regular basis. You can join partners across the world praying the litany once a month together on zoom, on either the first Friday of the month, led by our German partners at midday CET (11am UK time), or the third Tuesday, led by our North American partners at midday EST (5pm UK time). Email email hidden; JavaScript is required if you'd like the link details to join in.

See our CCN Partner list Sept 2023, and CCN Friends (less active, more historic partners).

Today, our greatest numbers of partners are in Germany, the UK & Ireland and the USA, but we also have sizeable numbers in South Africa, Canada, the Netherlands and Central and Eastern Europe; overall, we have partners and friends in 45 countries across five continents. Different partners may focus on political, racial, religious, social or economic reconciliation; they may address war and violent conflict, post conflict restoration or healing; their work can have broad and far-reaching, national or regional consequences, or it can seek to address local communities specifically. Partners support one another, pray for one another and share their stories with one another.

CCN Sunday

Around the turn of September/October each year we have a dedicated day of celebrating our Community on CCN Sunday, this year on 24th September. It’s an opportunity for all worship communities involved with the CCN to pray together as one body in a part of their morning service, and a chance for us all to reconnect our communities with why the CCN matters, why Coventry still inspires, and where our own stories connect. A different global region of the CCN leads in producing an online service each time: this year it's the turn of our Dutch partners from the Pauluskerk at Breukelen. You are welcome to follow and share their online service, in Dutch and in English, or the online service liturgy.

See here the Creed for CCN Sunday written for this year's service in Coventry, and our Reconciliation Eucharist for CCN Sunday , our service liturgy at Coventry Cathedral on the 24th September - do please use either of these in your own services if you wish to.

Watch Dean John here explain what it means to be a CCN partner and read his CCN Sunday sermon.

See also the previous online CCN Sunday services, from 2022: South African partners' online service (service liturgy here) and 2021: US partners'online service.

Read our CCN Governance Document.

Download and print our information leaflet here and/or the low res version (for reference only)

The Community of the Cross of Nails in 2023

Late in 2022, around the 75th anniversary of the first Cross of Nails presentation in 1947, we asked several CCN partners, from different parts of the world, to record a short video about what they do and their connection to the CCN. The story begins with that very first partner, the parish of St Nikolai in Kiel, Germany, and moves on to feature partners across a range of organisations which have joined the network in the succeeding decades: a theological seminary in Germany, a hospital chaplaincy in London, a retreat centre in rural Canada, an ICON school in Austria, and the social justice arm of the Church of South Africa.

With our very grateful thanks to all those partners who contributed these short films, and to the Ecumenical Prize of the Catholic Academy of Bavaria for enabling the film to be produced.

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