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EDEO Executive Board Meets in Chattanooga

Diocesan Press Service. December 23, 1974 [74360]

Isabel Baumgartner, Editor, The Tennessee Churchman

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- Episcopal dioceses and parishes across the country will begin to scrutinize the precise nature of Church membership -- closely, and soon.

That's the prediction of 16 Episcopal ecumenical leaders who met November 19-21 in Chattanooga: the executive board of the EDEO, the national network of Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers, chaired by the Rev. Dr. John H. Bonner, Jr., who hosted the meeting.

The membership issue was spotlighted ten days earlier in Cincinnati, when the Consultation on Church Union asked each of its nine participating churches to work toward removing any restrictions to "receiving into full membership" baptized members of any of the other eight.

The matter formed a key agenda item for the board: one representative from each U.S. Episcopal province; national ecumenical officer Peter Day; the Rev. C. Allen Spicer, Jr. (Easton), Mrs. Alex Drapes (Montana), and Mrs. Sarah Steptoe (West Virginia) from the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations; the Rev. William A. Norgren (New York), publisher of the Ecumenical Bulletin; Mrs. Phebe Hoff (Virginia); and secretary Mrs. Lee Winchester, Jr. (Tennessee). Unable to be present: Bishop John Burt of Ohio, and the Rev. Canon Robert L. Clayton of Vermont.

Mrs. Hoff, a COCU delegate, told the board that assent to the COCU statement by General Convention would allow a person to "change membership" from another COCU church to an Episcopal parish simply by transfer.

"The real question," she said, "is how to formalize affiliation; we've always recognized that all duly baptized persons are members of the Church with a capital C."

The Rev. Harry B. Whitley (Newark) responded, "But in a church which takes its membership so seriously, why should the instructed and confirmed communicant be equated with someone who has done little more than sign the guest register on a Sunday morning ? "

Mr. Norgren said, "No other church in Christendom has taken confirmation as seriously as we have . . .. The COCU action opens a real can of worms, and a good one."

The Rev. Thomas F. Hudson (Upper South Carolina) expressed the view that the House of Bishops created an ecumenical obstacle by their recent response to the proposed Prayer Book Rite of Christian Initiation. At their Mexico meeting the Bishops reaffirmed confirmation as essential for Christians of other backgrounds who enter Episcopal parishes.

An earlier Amarillo gathering of diocesan liturgical officers had asked, by a vote of 55 to 1, that the word confirmation be dropped from the Church's vocabulary, together with the rite as presently interpreted.

Some parishes now receive baptized members from other churches and register them as such, Dr. Bonner noted in Chattanooga -- people distinct from " full communicants in good standing, " yet entitled to receive the Eucharist.

Peter Day commented, "The separation of baptism and confirmation is really curious. It's almost like having one eucharistic service to consecrate the bread and another to consecrate the wine. "

Reports from the provinces indicated an almost total lack of ecumenical initiative in many Episcopal dioceses. Where there is action, the representatives said, there appears to be more happening in Anglican/Roman Catholic conversations than in the direction of COCU. (Only Anglicans and Romans have nationwide networks of diocesan ecumenical officers.)

Exceptions were noted. In Massachusetts, the two Episcopal dioceses and the United Church of Christ have issued a joint statement on interim eucharistic fellowship; it has been authorized there for a UCC minister to celebrate the UCC Communion rite for an Episcopal parish without a priest, and vice versa. In Virginia, 14 Richmond denomination are participating actively in interim eucharistic fellowship; the three Virginia dioceses were to join the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond and the Lutheran Churches (LCA and ALC) in sponsoring a three-way LARC conversation December 3 in Hampton.

Mr. Hudson reported that Episcopalians in Mississippi have asked for a full set of position papers and suggested a month or six weeks of intensive theological debate on unity issues.

The revitalization of Montana's Association of Churches, reported the Very Rev. Raymond D. Brown, has led to an interchurch coalition for political action, as well as plans for joint ministries in the Big Sky resort area and the western coal mining region. Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists there will observe Christian Unity Week in January by a statewide ecumenical pilgrimage. Montana's one Episcopal and two Roman dioceses have issued a joint statement calling for ratification of the ARCIC document on ministry and ordination.

The Rev. John Langfeldt (Nevada) described growing warmth between his diocese and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno, which both led to and was increased by an event of last summer. When the Diocese of Reno went bankrupt after losing its entire $3 million endowment through the failure of an investment firm, the Episcopal diocese responded with the gift of $5,000 -- one-twentieth of its own endowment.

The board firmed plans to expand circulation of its Ecumenical Bulletin by a subscription plan beginning in June 1975.

Peter Day commented that, at the early November A/RC national meeting, approaches to sharing the Eucharist were prominent in the discussions. At the Chattanooga meeting, intercommunion was mentioned repeatedly.

As Mr. Whitley put it, "After all, the test of whether you're really a member of my family or not is whether you can sit down at my table."

The board developed plans for the first annual gathering of the EDEO, in San Diego February 17-18, and urged all dioceses to make it possible for their people to attend. Some help with travel expense, for eastern dioceses, may be available via Peter Day's office. The board decided to seek $10,000 from the 1975 General Church Program to forward its work.

The National Workshop on Christian Unity holds its tenth annual session in San Diego February 18-20, 1975. The following year, both EDEO and the Workshop will take place in Memphis.

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