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Tenth Lambeth Conference May Be Last, May Be Most Significant

Diocesan Press Service. June 5, 1968 [66-7]

NEW YORK, N. Y. -- The historic Lambeth Conference will have its tenth session this summer in England with the Archbishop of Canterbury serving as host Bishop to 500 other fellow Bishops of the Anglican Communion.

It could very well be the last of the Lambeth Conferences, according to the Rt. Rev. Ralph Dean, Executive Officer of the Anglican Communion, who will serve as conference secretary. The Conference held its first meeting in 1867.

" If we are serious about our ecumenical enterprises," Bishop Dean said recently, "in ten years time there ought not to be much left of the Anglican Communion as we know it. I myself belong to the school of thought who think that it may well be the last Lambeth Conference. I personally happen to think it ought to be the last Lambeth Conference. I think the day of the confessional meetings, whether Anglican or Roman or Methodist or whatever, is gone."

"I say this on the basis of my own experience which has taken me sixteen times around the world in three years. And when I see how pitifully small the Christian presence is in different parts of the world, it is utter folly for us to continue our denominational barriers."

It is against this backdrop of hopeful uncertainty that the month-long sessions of Lambeth will be held. It may be the last, but it could very well be one of the most significant.

The largest group of Bishops at the Conference will be from the Episcopal Church in the United States which has around 150 Bishops in active service. The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop, will attend.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as the spiritual head of a Communion comprising 19 national or regional Churches throughout the world and of which the Episcopal Church is a member, has set the theme of the Conference, "The Renewal of the Church in Faith, Ministry and Unity. "

He has said that he has high hopes for the Conference which will include many Bishops from the "younger Churches" who are part of the native leadership which has emerged in the new nations of Africa and Asia.

"The Christian faith is being challenged on all sides," he has said. "The matter of ministry is also important, so the Bishops will consider not only the work of the ordained ministry but how laymen and women can find the place appropriate to them in the Church's service of God and the human race. The Conference cannot be inward-looking, and questions of unity with other parts of Christendom will be prominent and urgent. "

"It is my hope that when the Conference speaks of Faith it will be fearless, when it speaks of Ministry it will be bold, and when it speaks of Unity it will be imaginative."

Twenty-four persons chosen for their scholarship and recognized as experts in their various fields will serve as consultants, with two of them coming from the United States. They will be Dr. Peter Day, Ecumenical Officer of the Episcopal Church, and the Rev. John Macquarrie, professor at Union Theological Seminary, like Dr. Day also an Episcopalian.

Observers will include representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and many other religious institutions and organizations, including the Mar Thoma Church, Church of South India, Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Salvation Army, Pentecostal and World Council of Churches.

The conference, described by Bishop Dean as a "brotherly consultation" rather than "another Vatican II, " has been divided into three sections. The first, "Renewal of the Church in Faith, " will be chaired by the Most Rev. Howard Clark, Bishop of Rupert's Land and Primate of the Anglican Church in Canada. The section of "Renewal of the Church in Ministry" will be under the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of York and Primate of England, and the third section, "Renewal of the Church in Unity," will have the Most Rev. Jacob de Mel, Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, as its chairman.

A preparatory volume of essays on these topics has been prepared for the use of the conferees and will provide the basis for the discussions to follow.

Lambeth also has always been an occasion for ecclesiastical splendor, and three colorful events will provide opportunities for this: an Evensong service at Canterbury Cathedral prior to the opening of the Conference, an opening sung Eucharist at 10 a.m., July 28, in Westminster Abbey, and the mission service, also a sung Eucharist, to be held in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on August 19.

Plenary sessions of Lambeth, which will be open to the press, will be held on July 27 and August 25. Other working sessions will be closed to the public in order to allow the Bishops to do their work. Final reports of the Conference will be made public at a press conference on August 26, after the Conference has concluded its work.

The first Lambeth Conference was held in 1867 with only 76 Anglican Bishops in attendance. The growing strength of the Anglican Communion is reflected in the increasingly greater attendance at succeeding Lambeth Conferences: 1878, 100 Bishops; 1888, 145 Bishops; 1897, 194 Bishops; 1908, 242 Bishops; 1930, 307 Bishops; 1948, 326 Bishops; and 1958, 310 Bishops.

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