Statement of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church on the April 27 Resolution of the ESA
Episcopal News Service. May 10, 1990 [90034_Z]
Edmond L. Browning, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church
The resolution of the Episcopal Synod of America of April 27 asks that the Presiding Bishop and the president of the synod appoint a joint committee to develop a plan to create a new province of the Episcopal Church, and to draft enabling legislation for presentation to the General Convention.
I believe it would be inappropriate for the Presiding Bishop to be involved in these actions in any way. If the synod wishes to bring legislation concerning the creation of an autonomous, non-geographic province before our General Convention, they may certainly do so.
The proposal of the synod is contrary to the recommendations of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate as endorsed unanimously by the Primates of the Anglican Communion [heads of all the provinces of the Anglican Communion]. The Primates stated at their meeting in Cyprus [April and May 1989] that they "particularly wish to endorse and emphasize the judgement of the commission that parallel jurisdictions would jeopardize the role of the bishop as symbol of unity."
The archbishop's commission considered the matter of parallel jurisdictions at some length, and I cite here the pertinent sections from their report.
"Some proposals [for the accommodation of those who dissent from the ordination of women] amount to a separate and parallel episcopal jurisdiction within the same territory.
We note that Provinces have been unenthusiastic about such radical suggestions. Indeed, successive Lambeth Conferences have set their face against parallel Anglican jurisdictions. Even where they exist -- as in continental Europe -- they have been consistently deplored (cf Lambeth Conference 1897 Res. 24; LambethConference 1968, Res. 63). Suspicion of parallel jurisdictions seems soundly based on an ecclesiology of 'communion' which sees the bishop as the sacramental representative of the whole ecclesial community, and that community itself is truly grounded in its social context and culture. The classical definition of schism was indeed the setting up of rival episcopal thrones in the same local community.
"Against this it must be noted that the Anglican Communion has more recently accepted the practice of parallel 'cultural jurisdictions' as, for example, in the Diocese of Aotearoa in New Zealand, the Order of Ethiopia in Southern Africa, and the Navajoland Area Mission in the USA. In Europe, the two Iberian Churches are extra-provincial to Canterbury, while the diocese in Europe is organized quite separately as a diocese 'within' the Province of Canterbury.
"Yet these hardly offer possible models because such parallel jurisdictions remain in communion with each other and there is no theoretical problem about the interchangeability of ministries. They have usually been described as being in 'full communion.' Whatever the exact degree of communion between them, such jurisdictions have recognized each other as possessing true bishops, ordaining true ministers of word and sacrament. Such cannot be said for some of the proposals for parallel episcopates, which seem to amount to institutional schism by the creation and transfer of parishes in which the diocesan bishop is not recognized. Therefore, we do not recommend the establishment of parallel jurisdiction within the Provinces of the Anglican Communion as an appropriate pastoral solution to this question."
A separate, non-geographic province with autonomy outside the Episcopal Church and our common life and order has been the expressed wish for many years of those who now lead the synod. After considerable conversation and negotiation, both public and private, it appeared, and I had trusted, that we had moved beyond that issue with some grace. Therefore, I am profoundly disappointed by this resolution, which envisions a province within the Episcopal Church -- but which, in fact, would be separate and apart from our other nine provinces.
I am grieved by what this resolution says about the willingness of those who relate to the synod to live and work with those who do not hold their views. This desire of the synod to establish a separate province is also a source of sadness to others around the Anglican Communion with whom I have been in conversation.
The synod proposal is contrary to the resolution unanimously adopted by the House of Bishops in Philadelphia just last fall which recognized "the need to be true to our sense of structure and diocesan boundaries." The House of Bishops resolution stated: "Our common study [of the report of the Primates] leads us to recommend its theological meditation on koinonia [life in the community of faith] as well as its pastoral guidelines as a model for life together during this time of graceful challenge and opportunity."
I must observe with sadness that this initiative by the Episcopal Synod of America to separate itself from the other provinces of the Episcopal Church is contradictory also to the spirit in which the House of Bishops gathered. It was the spirit of that meeting, and it is my strongest sense and at the heart of all the actions I have taken over the last years, that we all need each other. The Episcopal Church needs those who have joined together as the Episcopal Synod of America, and we all need to search for ways to reach out pastorally to one another.
The House of Bishops resolution put it very well: "This grace-filled bond of collegiality will help us to share each other's burdens and sufferings and thereby bear witness to the life of loving communion with God who suffers with us, for us, and even at our hands."