News Brief
Episcopal News Service. May 3, 1979 [79145]
The Most Rev. Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, has put off a long-planned trip to Poland in order not to interfere with the visit to his home country of Pope John Paul II. In a personal letter to the Roman pontiff, Archbishop Coggan said: "There are some occasions when a family must celebrate together and guests, however welcome, do well to remain outside the family circle." He would have arrived in Poland the same day as the Pope.
Christian and Muslim representatives met here for three days of conversations on ways to improve understanding between the faiths. Participants, from the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and Islamic Conferences, all called the talks "frank and friendly. " A series of conferences and areas of cooperation were proposed as was a possible future international conference. Principles of mutual respect, human rights and restraint of tensions were reaffirmed.
The Rt. Rev. Furman C. Stough, Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, was elected chancellor of the University of the South by the trustees at their annual meeting in Sewanee, April 27. He was installed in a simple ceremony that afternoon in All Saints' Chapel on the university campus. Bishop Stough replaces Presiding Bishop John M. Allin, who was elected to the post in 1973 as Bishop of Mississippi. Both are alumni of the university, which is operated by 24 southern Episcopal dioceses. A bishop of one of the owning dioceses is chancellor and serves as chairman of the board of trustees. Bishop Stough has served the University of the South as a trustee and regent, and in 1977 served on the search committee for a new vice chancellor. He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree by the university in 1971, and earned his undergraduate and theological degrees there.
A new Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament will be published April 23 by Westminster Press of Philadelphia. This concordance, prepared by Clinton Morrison, Professor of New Testament, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, is the first to the RSV Bible that lists all the English words in the New Testament, indicates the Greek word or words translated, and arranges the quotations of passages of English under the Greek words they translate. Bruce M. Metzger, chairperson of the National Council of Churches Revised Standard Version Bible Committee, praised the 14 years of painstaking labor Professor Morrison went through in the effort: "It is now possible for any reader to trace the different meanings of the Greek word in the varying contexts of the new Testament as translated in the RSV," he stated. "Thus the variety of nuances of the original language of the writers of the New Testament, hitherto available only to scholars, will be accessible to all in a most convenient format."
The Anglican Communion's Committee of Primates will hold its first meeting in November in England. Archbishop Donald Coggan of Canterbury had proposed such a committee -- composed of the spiritual heads of all the 26 national or regional churches of the Communion -- at the decennial Lambeth meeting last summer as a measure to help overcome what is perceived as a lack of central authority in the Communion. The committee will meet about every two years and probably work closely with the Anglican Consultative Council which contains lay and clerical representatives of all the member-churches.