During a nine-day meeting in Montreal which ended May 29, the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod approved legislation bringing the church closer to Lutherans, opposing euthanasia and cloning, and expressing the church's support to partner churches in several oppressed or war-torn countries.

"Lift every voice —Faisons entendre nos voix" was the theme of the triennial body, which met in Montreal for the first time in 30 years.

In his opening address at the start of the synod, the Most Rev. Michael Peers, primate, told delegates that one of the least heard voices in the Canadian Anglican church was that of French Canada. He challenged the 300-member synod to pay particular attention to that voice during the gathering.

The synod adopted a resolution commending for study a report urging full communion between Canadian Anglicans and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Full communion would not be a merger of the two churches, but would recognize each other's clergy, rites and sacraments. Reactions to that report will be gathered by both churches during the next three years and considered again when the governing bodies of both churches meet in 2001.

Synod also adopted a resolution saying it cannot support euthanasia and assisted suicide. The resolution described such measures as "a failure of human community."

More than a dozen resolutions were passed affirming the church's stand against oppression, injustice, violence and war in several parts of the world, including Kenya, the Sudan and Colombia.

The Rt. Rev. Andrew Hutchison, Bishop of Montreal, delivered a major address in which he expressed the difficulties involved in leading a church which represents a small number of Anglophones in an overwhelmingly Francophone province.