Monday, June 07, 2010

Anglican Communion Secretary General takes action to remove Episcopal Church officials from ecumenical posts in the Anglican Communion

From here:
Last Thursday I sent letters to members of the Inter Anglican ecumenical dialogues who are from the Episcopal Church informing them that their membership of these dialogues has been discontinued. In doing so I want to emphasise again as I did in those letters the exceptional service of each and every person to that important work and to acknowledge without exception the enormous contribution each person has made.

I have also written to the person from the Episcopal Church who is a member of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing that person’s membership and inviting her to serve as a Consultant to that body.

I have written to the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada to ask whether its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorising public rites of same-sex blessing.

At the same time I have written to the Primate of the Southern Cone, whose interventions in other provinces are referred to in the Windsor Continuation Group Report asking him for clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces.

These are the actions which flow immediately from the Archbishop’s Pentecost Letter.
Looking forward, there are two questions in this area which I would like to see addressed: One is the relationship between the actions of a bishop or of a diocese and the responsibilities of a province for those actions – this issue is referred to in the Windsor Continuation Group Report para 48.

Secondly, to ask the question of whether maintaining within the fellowship of one’s Provincial House of Bishops, a bishop who is exercising episcopal ministry in another province without the expressed permission of that province or the local bishop, constitutes an intervention  and is therefore a breach of the third moratorium.

Read the whole thing here.

5 comments:

Daniel Weir said...

It's intersting to note that the representatives of no other member church of the Communion have been dismissed yet. Perhaps the blessing of same-sex unions in Canada and England and the consecration of American missionary Bishops by African churches can be overlooked for now - or maybe for a long time. Stay tuned.

redleg82 said...

TEC is the most visible ecumenical problem for Canterbury at the moment. Most other denominations don't understand the subtleties of the "border crossing" issue or don't see it as a divisive theological issue between the major churches.

Daniel Weir said...

TEC may be an ecumenical problem for Canterbury, but at least part of the Anglican tradition has been a theological diversity which may make it challenging for others who expect someone to speak authoritatively for all Anglicans.

Andrew said...

Daniel, the ArchBish seems to be taking the stance that only official actions by the entire province count, so that what happened in Canada doesn't count, and violations of COE rules by COE priests don't count against the COE. I'm not sure I agree with this, but it is at least consistent.

Also, the letter says that they are going to clarrify the current status of "border crossing." I think it is safe to say that if their inquiries result in evidence of ongoing border crossing by a specific province that is represented in the bodies in question, we will see some more people being removed.

Lapinbizarre said...

Presiding Bishop visits the UK this week.