Anglican Regional Council Holds First Meeting
Diocesan Press Service. January 20, 1969 [73-12]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- Hopes for the close association of three North American Anglican Churches, joined together in a council to establish coordinated planning and programming, will become an actuality early next month.
The first official meeting of the Anglican Regional Council of North America, newly organized by the American Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Church of the Province of the West Indies, will be held February 1 to 3 in Nassau, the Bahamas.
Participation in the regional council was approved by the Episcopal Church at its triennial General Convention held at Seattle in 1967.
The American Church will be represented by the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop; the Rt. Rev. Stephen Bayne, vice president of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council; Marius Bressoud, of Bethlehem, Penna.; Mrs. John Jackson, of Portland, Ore.; the Rev. Henry Mitchell, rector of Trinity Church, Charlottesville, Va.; the Rt. Rev. Francisco Reus-Froylan, Bishop of Puerto Rico, and Thomas H. Wright, Jr., of Washington, D.C.
All will serve as members of the Council.
The Canadian delegation to the meeting will be led by the Most Rev. H. H. Clark, Primate of Canada, and the Rt. Rev. George N. Luxton, Bishop of Huron.
All three of the Council Churches will have seven representatives each serving as members. In addition two delegates to meetings of the Council are to be appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and three delegates are to represent the Conference of Anglican Bishops in South America.
The three-day meeting, according to Bishop Bayne, will be devoted to the work of organization and the adoption of a budget. Regular meetings will be held by the Council every two years, with executive committee meetings being held annually.
Priority concerns in mapping the first year's work of the Council, Bishop Bayne said, might be illustrated in three areas :
1. Coordination of work in Latin America, with a division of responsibility among the member Churches.
2. Examination of possible opportunities where work can be carried out in common, particularly in the development of education and information materials, and in ecumenical cooperation.
3. Exploration of ways in which the three Churches can participate in each others planning and program.
" In the past we have operated independently on parallel lines, as if we were the only Church around, " Bishop Bayne said. "We have to become involved with one another."
The Rt. Rev. J. Brooke Mosley, deputy for overseas relations of the Episcopal Church and former Bishop of Delaware, will serve as a member of the council as an alternate for the Church's Presiding Bishop.