Consultation Will Set Ecumenical Agenda for the Future
Episcopal News Service. April 1, 1993 [93059]
The Episcopal Church will sit down with its ecumenical partners next fall for a consultation to test its ecumenical experience and set an agenda for the future.
Under the theme, "Ecumenism of the Possible: Witness, Theology and the Future Church," the five-day meeting in October will explore the Anglican understanding of the church and its challenges, seek fresh possibilities for visible unity in "one eucharistic fellowship...a communion of communions" in dialogue with other Christian traditions and test the church's findings against both ecumenical experience in dioceses and parishes -- and the Faith and Order movement."
"The purpose of the consultation is not to solve the problems we are facing but to set an agenda for the future," said the Rev. William Norgren, ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church. He pointed out that the church's Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (SCER), sponsor of the consultation, will take the "questions, definitions, recommendations and directions" from the consultation and "discern what this may mean for the General Convention, dioceses and their diocesan ecumenical officers, and the Anglican Communion," according to the prospectus for the meeting.
The consultation was authorized by the 1991 General Convention, which asked SCER for "an explicit examination of ecclesiology in each of our dialogues" and a testing of those issues "against actual experience" at the local level.
Among the partners invited will be Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, United Methodist, Reformed (Presbyterians and United Church of Christ), Disciples, Church of the Brethren, historic black churches, Old Catholic, Reformed Episcopal and perhaps Evangelicals.
Small groups will examine the major documents that have emerged from ecumenical conversations and then look at obstacles that persist in relationships with each of the traditions. Major presentations by Prof. Henry Chadwick of the Church of England and Dr. Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, will provide specific challenges for the small groups.
Norgren said that the consultation will be "a real working conference" which will attempt to "pull together all of our dialogues and activities, looking for some coherence so that our efforts are seen as part of a whole."