Fr. Smith has, no doubt, legitimate concerns about COCU and about the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat [TLC, May 7]. I wish he had not based those concerns on our good stewardship of the Lambeth Quadrilateral.

In your own pages, in 1946, Mary H. Thompson wrote the following: "Professor Shepard in his article on church unity refers to the vision of my father, William Reed Huntington, in drafting the Quadrilateral which the Anglican Communion has adopted as its platform for unity. It is thirty-seven years since my father's death, and there cannot now be many people who talked with him about the Quadrilateral, but I am one of those who did. I have always remembered his description of the fourth part of it, the Historic Episcopate. He meant it definitely to exclude any necessary allegiance of the Episcopal Church to the Apostolic succession, the Historic Episcopate being a fact which all can acknowledge. I am writing this only because one of your correspondents included the Apostolic succession among the well-established beliefs of the Episcopal Church."

Thus, according to its author, the Quadrilateral concerns itself with the ministry and authority of bishops, not with apostolic succession.

(The Rev.) DAVID E. CROSSLEY

St. David's Church

Baltimore, Md.