Leaders of US and Canadian Anglican Churches Meet
Diocesan Press Service. September 15, 1975 [75312]
TORONTO, Ont., Canada -- The presiding bishop and the presidents of the provinces of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. have just concluded an informal conference with their counterparts in the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and six of the nine provincial presidents in the U.S. Church, met September 10-12 at a conference center near Toronto with the Most Rev. Edward W. Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, and the metropolitans who head the four provinces of that church.
The Episcopal Church leaders were honoring an invitation that was initially extended at the U.S. House of Bishops meeting in October, 1968, in Augusta, Ga., when the Canadian bishops, who were invited guests of the U.S. House, suggested a reciprocal meeting in Canada. Since that time the meeting schedules of the two Houses of Bishops have not permitted a full joint assembly. This meeting of the leaders of the two Churches, set several months ago, was in response to the 1968 invitation.
Bishop Allin said that the emphasis in the discussions was on the on-going relationships between the two North American church bodies in the Anglican Communion. Special emphasis, he said, was on the role of bishops in the church today.
He said that the issue of the ordination of women to the priesthood was not on the agenda.
Attending with Bishop Allin from the U.S. Church were Bishop Frederick B. Wolf of Maine, Province I; Suffragan Bishop J. Stuart Wetmore of New York, Province II; Bishop William F. Creighton of Washington, Province III; Bishop Albert W. Hillestad of Springfield, Province V; Bishop George T. Masuda of North Dakota, Province VI; and Bishop Edward C. Turner of Kansas, Province VII. Absent were Bishop C. Kilmer Myers of California, Province VIII, Bishop Melchor Saucedo of Western Mexico, Province IX, and Bishop Hunley A. Elebash of East Carolina, acting president of Province IV since the death of president Iveson B. Noland of Louisiana in June.