It is unfortunate that people remind us Lambeth has no authority to pass binding resolutions only when they disagree with their content. It is perhaps more unfortunate when people appeal to Lambeth as authoritative and demand submission to its decisions. The former position at least has the virtue of truth behind it, a truth that the editor's column on Bishop Shahan's pastoral letter [TLC, March 14] appears to question.

If there is any doubt, one can consult sources written long before the recent controversies, Wand's The Anglican Communion and Cross's Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, to find that Lambeth is not an authoritative body to be obeyed, but only expresses the mind of those who attend it. For primary evidence of Lambeth's purposes and intent, Evans' and Wright's The Anglican Tradition documents that the founders of Lambeth were particularly anxious lest anyone think they were convening a council that would pass binding resolutions, and would rather not call it if that was how it would be seen.

(The Rev.) Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG St. Paul's Church Yonkers, N.Y.