Design Group works on Anglican covenant revision
Episcopal News Service. April 3, 2009 [040309-02]
Matthew Davies
The group charged with "designing" a covenant that could be used as a unifying set of principles among the provinces of the Anglican Communion met March 30-April 3 in Cambridge, England to work on a new revision of the text.
"A completed revision of the proposed covenant has been finished, along with a commentary explaining our work," the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, one of two Episcopal Church members on the Covenant Design Group, told ENS at the conclusion of the meeting. "We have taken seriously the array of responses received from the provinces and from around the communion and larger church."
The latest incarnation of the Anglican covenant, along with the design group's commentary, is expected to be "posted on the Anglican Communion website sometime next week," said Radner.
The design group, Radner says, is "warmly commending this draft" to the Anglican Consultative Council -- the communion's main legislative body and the only instrument with the authority to ask the Anglican provinces to sign onto the covenant -- for discussion at its May 1-13 meeting in Kingston, Jamaica.
The Covenant Design Group was appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on behalf of the primates and has been meeting since January 2007. The soon-to-be-released draft will be the third version of the covenant released by the design group. The provinces of the Anglican Communion had until March 9 to submit responses to the second draft (St. Andrew's Draft) for consideration by the design group at its meeting this week.
The idea for an Anglican covenant was first cited in the 2004 Windsor Report (paragraphs 113-120) and has been supported by all the instruments of communion as a way for the Anglican Communion to maintain unity amid differing viewpoints, especially on human sexuality issues and biblical interpretation.
The members of the Covenant Design Group are:
- The Rt. Rev. Drexel Gomez, former primate of the West Indies (chair)
- The Rev. Dr. Victor Atta-Baffoe, Anglican Church of West Africa
- The Most Rev. Dr. John Chew, primate of South East Asia
- The Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb, The Episcopal Church
- The Rt. Rev. Santosh Marray, bishop of the Seychelles
- The Most Rev. Dr John Neill, archbishop of Dublin
- Chancellor Rubie Nottage, Church in the Province of the West Indies
- Dr. J. Eileen Scully, Anglican Church of Canada
- The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, The Episcopal Church
The Rev. Canon Gregory Cameron, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion, serves as secretary to the group.
The Covenant Design Group members will attend Cameron's April 4 consecration as bishop of the Diocese of St. Asaph in the Church in Wales.