Presiding bishop re-elected to Primates Standing Committee
Episcopal News Service. February 16, 2011 [021611-02]
Matthew Davies
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is among five members elected to serve on the Primates Standing Committee.
The elections, which were held during the Jan. 25-30 Primates Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, have only just been announced because the Anglican Communion Office was awaiting acceptance from Episcopal Church of Sudan Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, who was unable to attend the meeting. Deng was elected to represent Africa on the committee.
Jefferts Schori first was elected to represent the Americas and the Caribbean on the Primates Standing Committee during the February 2007 Primates Meeting in Tanzania. She will now serve a second three-year term on the committee, which meets once or twice a year along with members of the Anglican Consultative Council Standing Committee.
The memberships of the two committees combine to form the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, which oversees the day-to-day operations of the Anglican Communion Office and the programs and ministries of the four instruments of communion -- the archbishop of Canterbury, the ACC, the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference of bishops.
Jefferts Schori is the only primate to be re-elected to the committee for the next triennium.
"I am grateful to my colleagues in the Americas for their confidence, and look forward to working with partners around the communion as we seek to heal a broken and hurting world," Jefferts Schori said, according to a release from the Office of Public Affairs. "I have every hope that the primates can be models and leaders of that work, as variously-gifted members of the Body of Christ."
In addition to Jefferts Schori and Deng, the Primates Standing Committee will be served by the Most Rev. David Chillingworth, primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (representing Europe); Bishop Samuel Azariah of the Church of Pakistan (representing the Middle East and West Asia); and Archbishop Paul Kwong of Hong Kong (representing South East Asia and Oceania).
Five alternates also were elected to represent their regions in the event that a member is unable to attend a meeting. They are Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi (representing Africa); Archbishop John Holder of the West Indies (representing the Americas and the Caribbean); Archbishop Alan Harper of Ireland (representing Europe); Bishop Paul Sarker of Bangladesh (representing the Middle East and West Asia); and Archbishop Winston Halapua of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (representing South East Asia and Oceania).
Members of the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion's main policy-making body, that serve on the Standing Committee are Bishop James Tengatenga of Central Africa (ACC chair), Canon Elizabeth Paver of England (ACC vice chair), Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut in the U.S.-based Episcopal Church, Anthony Fitchett of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, Dato Stanley Isaacs of the Province of South East Asia, Philippa Amable of West Africa, Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe of Ceylon, and the Rev. Canon Janet Trisk of South Africa.
The next meeting of the Standing Committee will be held in late March. Jefferts Schori will be unable to attend as the meeting overlaps with that of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops.