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Porvoo Agreement Lights Road to Unity for 50 million European Christians

Episcopal News Service. September 26, 1996 [96-1569]

Patricia Lefevere, New Jersey-based Freelance Writer

(ENS) Despite the serious, sometimes somber mood of many delegates to the World Council of Churches' Central Committee meeting in Geneva September 12-20, participants celebrated some major progress on the road to unity. Several European Christian churches, for example, were rejoicing in a new ecumenical relationship that fuels the dream of unity.

The Porvoo Agreement brings into partnership six Lutheran churches in the Nordic and Baltic region and the four Anglican churches of Great Britain and Ireland and means that 50 million European Christians are closer to one another than they have been in centuries.

The signatory Lutheran Churches of Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden along with their Anglican partners in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales have jointly affirmed baptism, Eucharist and ministry in each other's churches, including use of the sign of the historic episcopal succession.

Some 1,000 Christians attended the signing ceremony and celebration at Norway's ancient Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on September 1. The following day the primates of the signing churches met, joined by Danish and Latvian representatives who have not yet signed the declaration but continue to cooperate with the other churches.

A week later many of the same 25 bishops and five archbishops met in the Cathedral of Tallinn, Estonia, where the ceremony was again "joyful and solemn with much greeting by all the bishops," said Mary Tanner, moderator of the WCC's Faith and Order Commission who attended both ceremonies.

Kairos moment for European churches

"This is a kairos moment for the churches of Northern Europe," said Tanner, who is General Secretary of the Council for Christian Unity of the Church of England. The agreement to explore interchangeable ministries, full eucharistic communion and doing mission together whenever possible are "probably the most significant move toward visible unity since the Reformation," Tanner said in an interview.

For the Baltic churches, Porvoo signals that they are now "back in Europe," she added. The agreement, which takes its name from the Finnish city of Porvoo in whose cathedral the drafters of the statement celebrated Eucharist together after reaching agreement on the final text in 1992, follows a series of European ecumenical advances, Tanner said. She pointed to the 1973 Leunenberg agreement between Lutheran and Reformed churches and the Meissen agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany and the Church of England earlier this decade.

Tanner recalled "the wonderful moment of unity" experienced when British and German church leaders processed into Westminster Abbey and prayed together at the tomb of the "unknown warrior" before putting their names to the Meissen document. She said that she expected a similarly "wonderful event" on November 28 when the Porvoo signers hold their third ceremony at Westminster.

Tanner thought that Porvoo will also give impetus to the proposed Concordat between the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "Such agreements are built upon a close relationship over a long period; they come out of solid theological conversations among our churches," she said. She likened the signing of Porvoo to "the reception into our lives of these dialogues."

Among the strengths of Porvoo, she said, is that it has set up structures of mutual accountability to implement common mission and decision-making among Lutherans and Anglicans.

The Rev. David Perry, the Episcopal Church's ecumenical officer, said that the Porvoo Agreement was "a hopeful sign for all Christians" because it represents "the flowering of mutual faith and witness."

Perry is convinced that Porvoo and the proposed Concordat between Lutherans and Episcopalians in the United States "spring from the same desire for unity." He quickly added that "the task now is to live out the spirit of these agreements in faithful life and witness throughout the church."