SCOTLAND: Bishop Chillingworth reflects on Primates Meeting
Episcopal News Service. February 8, 2011 [020811-02]
ENS staff
The Most Rev. David Chillingworth, primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, has said that he looks forward to seeking ways that his province can play a stronger role in the Anglican Communion.
Chillingworth's comments were made Feb. 7 in a statement reflecting on the recent Jan. 25-30 Primates Meeting in Dublin, Ireland.
"I found the opportunities of building contacts and making friends quite extraordinary," said Chillingworth, who was attending his first Primates Meeting. "It makes a difference – if, for example, the meeting is considering the issue of blasphemy laws in Pakistan – to be sitting beside Bishop Samuel Azariah of the Church of Pakistan. Far off places suddenly become very close. And that's what communion is about."
Chillingworth, who also serves as bishop of St. Andrew's, Dunkeld & Dunblane, said he "felt keenly the disappointment" of not being with the primates who did not attend the meeting, either due to prior commitments, issues of health, situations in their provinces, or because of disagreements concerning issues of human sexuality.
Seven primates stayed away because of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's presence and recent developments supporting the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the Episcopal Church.
"I felt the poorer for not hearing what they had to say and having the chance of speaking with them," Chillingworth said. "But it was still a good and worthwhile meeting. As the statements make clear, the meeting spent much time clarifying the role of the Primates Meeting as one of the Instruments of Communion."
The primates developed a working document that outlines the nature and responsibility of their roles as church leaders and emphasizes their commitment to working together.
Chillingworth said that the Primates Meeting "should not be a place where decisions are made for the communion or for provinces. It was clear that most of us come -- as I do -- from provinces where decision-making is collegial and consultative within our autonomous provincial structure.
"So when our College of Bishops meets this week, my colleagues will not expect me to bring back a series of decisions for implementation," he added. "But they will want me to share with them the best account I can give of how other Anglican provinces are dealing with the same problems as we face."
The primates wrote letters and issued statements addressing several global and domestic issues, such as climate change, gender-based violence, the crisis in Zimbabwe, Christian persecution in Pakistan, instability in Egypt, national division in Korea, the referendum in Sudan, the post-earthquake situation in Haiti, and the brutal murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato, who was bludgeoned to death in his home community on Jan. 26.
Chillingworth noted that in Dublin the Primates Meeting defined itself as "a network of relationships which binds the Anglican Communion together -- striving to express 'that unity in diversity which is the Spirit's work among the churches of the communion and the community of primates."
The full text of Chillingworth's statement is available here.