Ecumenical participants at Lambeth Conference bring shared voices, wisdom
Episcopal News Service, Canterbury. July 25, 2008 [072508-08]
Pat McCaughan and Matthew Davies
Archbishop Boutros Nabil El-Sayah of the Maronite Catholic Church of Haifa and the Holy Land said he came to the 2008 Lambeth Conference expecting to be an ecumenical observer and discovered instead he was a participant.
He and about 70 other ecumenical guests, hailing from the Lutheran World Federation to the Orthodox Church of Albania, the Moravian Church to the Salvation Army, have been participating in bishop discussions groups, offering feedback and reflection, for the first time in the history of the every-decade gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world.
On Friday, July 25, bishops spent time in their discussion groups addressing the theme "Serving Together, the bishop and other churches."
"This is the ecumenical spirit we value greatly in this conference," Sayah said while addressing media July 25. "We are not dialoguing for the sake of dialoguing, we want ecumenism to be advanced. I'm excited to be here."
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told reporters that, from the very visible ecumenical nature of the July 24 "walk of witness" in London to heighten awareness of global poverty, to the indaba discussion groups, to smaller and more private conversations, the message is clear: "we're all in this together."
"Yesterday's march in London was a watershed; everybody who participated felt they were part of a remarkable occasion," Williams said, acknowledging that "more sensitive" and perhaps more difficult issues such as an Anglican covenant will be broached during next week's discussions.
Both the commissioner of the Salvation Army and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church told him: "Your issues are everybody's issues. That's why we're grateful to be ecumenical partners. We're all dealing with authority of Scripture, theology, ethics. We all have these problems, you happen to be dealing with them in a pretty acute way and we need to be part of that discussion. And you need to be part of ours."
Dame Mary Tanner, DBE, president of the World Council of Churches (WCC), told media that the conference design challenges the bishops to be more intentional in shared mission because they are charged with the special care of the church and its people.
"This is a marvelous opportunity in their indaba time to exchange stories out of their various contexts about what's happening, who are their partners, how effective is their partnership in mission. It is time to think about intensified shared mission cooperation and an opportunity for them to listen to one another's stories and to know examples of good practice together."
"[Retired Archbishop of Cape Town] Desmond Tutu once said to the World Council of Churches that apartheid is too strong for a divided church," she recalled, adding: "So today is an opportunity for the bishops to think in their own context what are the challenges here which are too strong for individual churches."
The Rev. Canon Gregory Cameron, deputy secretary general and director of ecumenical affairs and studies for the Anglican Communion, said using the smaller indaba or discussion group model allowed fuller participation.
"Basically, everyone's here," Cameron said. "You name them and they're here."
"In previous conferences, the bishops went into legislative and decision-making sessions," he said. "Now, there's no question of voting rights, so it's possible for guests to be fully engaged."
The Archbishop of Canterbury invited leaders of other Christian denominations who were in pastoral ministry or the nearest equivalent.
The ecumenical visitors will also offer feedback. "There is a sense in which the Lambeth Conference is trying to model not just a way of Anglicans doing ecumenism but trying to model the best way of doing ecumenism from everybody," Cameron said. "That is learning to listen to the wisdom our brothers and sisters in Christ from other traditions have to offer."
Bishop Probal Dutta of the Diocese of Durgaput in the Church of North India, one of the united churches of the Anglican Communion, said that the full participation of ecumenical partners has been "a real encouragement for us."
"We must work together," he said. "Otherwise we will be a half-hearted family, half-Christ. Do we follow the same Lord and Jesus Christ -- there are doctrines and differences that should not divide us.
He said participating in Thursday's walk of witness and pushing for fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) "does not need any color, it affects everybody, all the ecumenical partners, all the Anglican Communion. It is an opportunity for us all to think jointly of the mission of the church."
Bishop Carlos Lopez Lozano, of the Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain, said listening to those with "another perspective…seeing through [their] eyes something that we cannot see in our eyes" inspired a revelation.
"It was a great discovery for me to move from competition to collaboration," he said. "In the past, churches have been working in competition, now we need to work in collaboration. It is impossible for only one church or only one denomination to do this kind of work. We need to transform our mentality from competition to collaboration."
He cited successful collaboration with Roman Catholic churches in his diocese, including a program to care for immigrants and refugees. The Roman Catholic Church also shares space for social programs, he said.
Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said ecumenical partnerships strengthen the determination to do mission. "The cardinal's [Ivan Dias] address the other night was an eloquent testimony to those possibilities."
An ENS article on Dias' July 22 address is available here.
In an afternoon self-select session, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, reflected on four decades of dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
Speaking about the work of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), Murphy-O’Connor said, "There are people on both sides who have become skeptical about this whole enterprise, but I am not one of them.
"Dialogue will continue in some form," he said. "Even if we sometimes find it hard to discern just how to go forward we cannot give up on seeking the unity Christ wills."